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accomplished, it only required one member to follow up with the payment - it did not rely on any group of members for the purchase itself, only the legals in making the initial application.
Mrs Hillgarth was in no way vital and in fact correspondence at the time evidences her total disregard for her fellow members and a total incompetence in seeking affordable advisers. She was insisting on using her recommended (via her Agents’ Surveyor) Solicitors quoting £9000 plus vat and costs.
We used Mr Brown-Constable’s for £2500 all in.
6 After buying the head lease we had another meeting at the same place, the Pheasantry, this time with one of the other two directors (I cannot remember which one). We needed someone to manage the block, which was now our responsibility. The point of the meeting was to introduce me to a Managing Agent from Birmingham. I also introduced Mr Brown-Constable to a firm called Best Gapp in Elizabeth Street who were more conveniently located five minutes away from Mitre House, but he was not inter- ested. At that stage I realised he had no intention of appointing anyone other than himself. He had just led me on in order to go through the motions.
(comment/reply) “I cannot remember which one” Mrs Hillgarth’s poor memory has been well cov- ered in previous correspondence (four times requested and four or five times supplied of the Schedule of Works as a prime example) I think Mrs Hillgarth is confusing the Birmingham ref- erence with own her RTM Solicitors (Emms Gilmore Liberson)....as we lunched with a firm called Hurford Salvi Carr with a head office in Hertford with local London bureaux in Clerken- well, Limehouse and the West End..!
They came highly recommended by Mrs Hillgarth’s close colleagues, Mr & Mrs Fortunati of Flat 9 Mitre House
7 Looking at my e-rnails from that time I now see clearly that in buying the head lease it had always been his intention to make money for himself. In an e-mail to me dated 14 October 2013 timed at 18:21 he wrote: "You are very strange - here's me trying my best to save you money by utilizing our fa- cilities and abilities ... or at least mine, to best advantage. Were you to tell me you had an idea to make me money {doubt I'd complain too much .... so long as we continued living apart! Note carefully our name, Mitre House Management Limited .... it's true that it was formed, as a legal entity and re- quirement, to purchase our Mitre House head lease but that doesn't restrict us from purchasing a hundred head leases and managing those blocks - think of the money we could be making if we were all pulling together .... "
(comment/reply) too true but as is quite apparent from the text of the email, "You are very strange - here's me trying my best to save you money by utilizing our facilities and abilities ... or at least mine, to best advantage.”, Mrs Hillgarth was still incapable of understanding the actual raison d’etre of our Head Lease purchase... economy!
8 I now see clearly, in the events which subsequently unfolded, and which I describe below, that Mr Brown-Constable has simply done what he had said from the outset that he would do. In buying the head lease and managing it, he has made, or attempted to make a lot of money at the expense of the leaseholders.
(comment/reply) all lessees including myself and Mrs Hillgarth are only paying £54 per annum more today per year than they were paying in annual service charges/reserves in 2011 with our previous Agents, KFH. That’s £54 more after 5 years and a £105,877 major works overhaul in 2014.
Mr Brown-Constable charges £10 a day to MHML for 24/7 porterage/concierge/oddjob man. MHML charges (in 2016) a total fee of £4995 to the Service Charge account (as advised in the annual pre-year Budget) from which his £3650 (£10 per day) is paid on a quaterly basis.
9 MHML acquired the head lease of the block at Mitre House from River's Edge (Dorrington) in August 2011. Each of the four directors of MHML, of which I was one, owned a flat in the block and each of