Page 22 - 8_PBC to Begg OCR_8-4-16 (38pp)

Nevertheless in your subsequent e-mail of 17 September 2014 you asked leaseholders to pay £108 per quarter additional funds for the whole of 2015. Then in your e-mail to the lessees dated 21 September 2014, which is particularly confusing and misleading, you told the lessees that if they were to pay an extra £2,000 each it would cover certain extra (unbudgeted and/or unwanted) works of which they had been notified at the last minute, such as replacement of the water tank, and a communal TV installation.
I should add that leaseholders had been advised, at 10.30 pm on a Friday night, of the urgent necessity to replace this water tank, but unsupported by any sort of rational explanation, or third party inspection report, or by alternative quotations – this notwithstanding that a surveyor had apparently been instructed in advance of the project. This compounded a similar unscheduled “emergency” on 10 August 2014 when leaseholders were advised that: “due to some emergency electric works following our recent electrical report, electricians will be attending Mitre House for a week and whilst various other electrical works are carried out as a further economy measure”. This had “only become apparent on Friday 8th[August] and best to get out of the way before major works commence on 1st September.” These electrics were “not included in the A&R Lawrence quote”.
In your e-mail of 21 September 2014 you went on to say that four items which had been approved and which were within the planned and budgeted works (including the specialist terrazzo floor renovation) would be cancelled because of a shortage of money: “this affair is far too time consuming on Management to re-arrange”.... On your MHML website under the heading “Quotes and Costs” you subsequently informed tenants that “due to the non- payment by some lessees of the previously agreed £2,000 to properly fund the A.R.Lawrence quote, certain works have been cancelled, namely the Terrazzo specialist floor attention, now only one colour internal communal areas and no attention to main front door and furniture”.
While it is true that some of the leaseholders had temporarily withheld payment, the fact is that they did all pay the £2,000. Attention to the Terrazzo specialist floor was an item which a majority of the lessees had voted for and which was part of the agreed specification – at least it was part of the “internals” specification which ultimately appeared on your website. Nevertheless you cancelled this and other work, but appear to have kept the money paid by the leaseholders to have the work done.
Not only did the lessees actually pay the £2,000 you had requested for the reserve, but they also paid in addition for the water tank replacement, and for the communal TV installation. Which begs the question what has happened to these funds which were paid to you on a false premise (ie on the assumption that all the scheduled work would be done) and which have not been refunded? Again this appears, in the absence of a proper explanation, to be fraudulent and I must invite your comments.
This is relatively simple answer to Mrs Hillgarth rambling observations.
In brief: once it was established that the Lawrence cheapest quote was to be adopted, Management firstly congratulated some common sense [the Wade £200,000 disappeared due most likely to the non compliance when push came to shove re the requested £12,000 donations] and then rightly advised that funds were still required, namely £2000 per lessee.
This £2000 was agreed and is prominent on the S.20 as required.