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until those arrears and debts are paid, we are not obliged to entertain additional requests. I note you also offered a cheque to cover the Water Tank, but nothing else. When requested as to the other sums due, you said they would not be paid and had nothing to do with anything else. [Actually this last state- ment was not correct. That was not what I had said].
65 He continued: "I repeat what we have said to all lessees including you, that you cannot just cherry-pick those items you deem fit to pay. It is all payments requested to date both the arrears of £2,000 and the
66 voluntary payments to cover the new tank and the Communal TV install ".
On 6 October 20141 sent him an e-mail questioning why we had to pay these additional sums for the water tank and the TV aerial. It seemed to me that these could easily be covered by the additional £2,000 he had demanded to top up the reserves. I said: "We are short £6, 757.90 in order to meet the refurbishment costs of £105,019.00. If we divide the shortfall, it would cost each of the 9 flats £755. 77. We agreed a nominal sum of £2,000 so that would cover the shortfall, and also the cost of replacing the water tank and changing the TV aerial. All the flats agreed to this. You are now blackmailing us, bullying us, insulting us and confusing us as usual." I did indeed regard this as blackmail. Mr Brown-Constable was in my view asking us for completely unjustified sums of money against the threat of various un- pleasant recriminations. In hindsight those demands seem even more disgraceful bearing in mind how
67 he diverted project monies intended for AR Lawrence into his own pocket.
Mr Brown-Constable's reply a few minutes later at 12:16 was particularly unpleasant and intimidating. He said: "a letter to your tenant goes to her very soon --- re possible contaminated tank --- and suggest- ing she withholds rent.... your illegally installed dish is about to be removed you're about to get a solici- tor's letter re arrears and breaches of lease .. need f say more --- you have 10 minutes". Now he was making an additional threat, namely that he would suggest to my tenant Stella that she should withhold the rent properly payable by her to me --- presumably on the basis that I was declining to pay the addi- tional money he was demanding for the (potentially contaminated) water tank. To be clear I was not suggesting that the water tank did not need to be replaced. All I was saying was that with the additional £2,000 per flat Mr Brown-Constable already had more than enough money to top up the reserves and
68 to pay the money needed for the water tank replacement and the communal TV aerial.
At 12:58 he came back again: "you'll be hearing from your tenant, Stella and I will recommend she with- holds her rent". Even at that time I realised he had gone too far and that in threatening me in this way, accompanied by demands for money, he was committing a criminal offence. I feared he might do some- thing similar to my tenant, who was a very nice but quite inexperienced young girl. At 13:10 on that day (6 October 2014) I replied: "You are a spiteful man, and don't intimidate my tenant as that would not be
69 a civil issue but certainly one for the police".
At 15:06 that day (6 October 2014) I sent him another e-mail with a list of the issues that were bothering me. I wanted to know how it had been possible for the original surveyor's report to have missed the problem of the water tank, which had originally been made out as such a dramatic issue, but which did not in fact get installed for several days. I was bothered about the out of hours working that was taking place, and I still had no real idea of what was, or was not, included in the £105,000 that we were going to be paying AR Lawrence for the refurbishment.
70 I said: "We still have no real idea of what is included in the £105,000. Purely because on your website you state that the internal works will cost £25,000 but won't include all the specifications you then list below. And that the external works will be costing £75,000. There is no specifications for that on the website, and whilst I'm not naive enough to leave out VAT it is hard to understand what we are paying for within the £105,000 and this is what EVERYONE WANTS TO KNOW AND WE KEEP ON AND ON AND ON ASKING FOR, AND HAVE DONE FOR MONTHS ON END".
71 I said to him in that same e-mail of 6 October: "I want to make sure that everyone is aware you have decided to "fire me", not that I was ever allowed anything to do with management from the first moment. Clearly I keep asking too many embarrassing questions ... You have already received a cheque for £867.87 for the water tank. I have today put in the post the cheque for £593. (This was for the TV satel- lite dish. And I did indeed put it in the post, although he subsequently rejected it - see below - and forced me to transfer more money by bank transfer). Regarding the £2,000 let me know who has paid