Page 10 - 1_Letter from Begg 23-3-16 (13pp)

Information
Mrs Hillgarth is also very dissatisfied that she has been denied access to information about the internal and external refurbishment work carried out at Mitre House. Not only she (on 10 and 15 December 2015), but also Diego Fortunati (on 17 and 21 December 2015) and Christopher Lee-Pemberton (since May 2015) have each pressed you, without success, to provide relevant details of the work carried out and a proper breakdown of the service charge accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014. In particular they wish to understand the expenditure referred to in the accounts as “reserves utilised”.
In your e-mail to Mrs Hillgarth dated 23 March 2015, in response to her numerous requests to see certain invoices relating to the water tank, the Sky TV aerial, the window repairs etc, you said: “Those invoices you are now requesting.....will be available to view once the annual accounts are finalised.” They weren’t. You insisted on supplying your own MHML invoices. The “Special Invoice” from MHML dated 7 October 2014 “to re-cable and re-install your Flat 5 existing Sky dish to Mitre House Communal system” does not say (as one might reasonably have expected): “as carried out and invoiced by [named] installers” but rather “as quoted/costed by [unnamed] installers”. It reads as though you obtained a quote for doing this work but then either did the work yourself, or through another cheaper contractor, for the price quoted by a third party. If that is not what happened, you may wish to clarify what actually did happen.
I repeat that following the consultation process it was agreed that A&R Lawrence & Sons Ltd should carry out full external and internal redecoration works at the tendered price of £105,019.38, (being £81,487.62 for externals and £23,531.76 for internals). It was also explicitly stated in the board minutes of MHML of 23 May 2014, that A&R Lawrence had been appointed to carry out the external and internal refurbishments.
Once a specification/schedule of work has been approved by the leaseholders under the Section 20 process, and contractors approved to carry it out, it is not open to you, except with the consent of your leaseholders, to deviate unilaterally from the approved scheme of work, or to decide that you will use different contractors. The leaseholders paid to have the work carried out by properly qualified skilled tradesmen. You claim to have saved the leaseholders money by doing some of the work yourself and/or through unapproved contractors, but the leaseholders have never seen the benefit of these alleged savings. The extent of your deviation from the approved scheme still remains opaque. The leaseholders are entitled to proper answers.
On Mrs Hillgarth’s behalf, my questions are as follows:
(a) “Reserves utilised”, according to the accounts, amounted to £105,877 against the budgeted figure of £105,019.38 for the agreed works. If the whole of this sum of £105,877 was not paid to A&R Lawrence & Sons Ltd, to whom was the balance paid?
(b) If the figure of £105,877 includes payments to persons other than A&R Lawrence & Sons Ltd, please clarify the timing and extent of any payments made to MHML, or to any director of MHML, or to any person, firm or company connected with MHML or any of its directors.