Page 14 - 81_COURT ORDERS OCR _1-11-16 (from 8-8-16)

14
In his e-mail of 21 September 2014 Mr Brown-Constable went on to say that four items which had specifically been approved under Section 20, and which were within the planned and budgeted works (including a specialist terrazzo floor renovation regarded by some of the leaseholders as essential) would be cancelled because of a shortage of money: "this affair is for too time consuming on Manage- ment to re-arrange" .... On the MHML website under the heading "Quotes and Costs" Mr Brown-Con- stable subsequently informed tenants that "due to the nonpayment 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. Nevertheless MHML cancelled this a nd other work, but appears to have kept the money paid by the leaseholders to have the work done.
Not only did the lessees actually pay the £2,000 requested by Mr Brown-Constable 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 MHML on a false premise (ie on the assumption that all the scheduled work would be done) and which have not been refunded?
Following this last e-mail from Mr Brown-Constable of 21 September 2014, Mr Diego Fortunati wrote to Mr Brown-Constable an e-mail dated 22 September 2014 asking (inter alia) who was actually carrying out the internal and external works? Why had Mr Brown-Constable unilaterally changed the scope of works originally approved, imposing works none of the lessees had agreed (the replacement TV aerial) or which had specifically been excluded (the lift), but now asking for additional funds? Why was he dis- posing of their reserve funds as if those were his own money?
As Mr Fortunati correctly stated, Section 20 is there to protect lessees and it cannot be circumvented by changing works and contractors at leisure. Mr Brown-Constable had no authority, he said, to dispose of the leaseholders' reserve fund for works outside the scope of the section 20 Notice, unless there are ur- gent contingencies.
Mr Fortunati also asked about the status of the electricity and telephone wiring at the building, and for certification that it was compliant with relevant regulations. This was something which Mrs Hillgarth had been requesting, without success, for some two years. As Mr Fortunati pointed out, fixing and properly testing the electricity and telephone lines should have been the first thing carried out by any profes- sional management team. He wanted to know how it was possible that (despite a surveyor apparently having been instructed before the works started) major liabilities such as the electrics and the water tank should have been discovered in the middle of the works rather than before starting. (These issues remain moot. In a more recent letter to leaseholders dated 15 March 2016, enclosing MHML's second quarter demand for 2016, Mr Brown-Constable advised the leaseholders that further electrical work/electrical metering replacement was to be done, and that further engineering work was to be car- ried out on the lift. Again this was not planned expenditure and ought arguably to have been encom- passed within the original refurbishment project).
In his e-mail of 22 September 2014 Mr Fortunati also complained that, having initially told the lease- holders that refurbishment of the lift could not be afforded/included in the scope of the work, Mr Brown- Constable had unilaterally chosen to paint the lift gold - a scheme he had proposed two years earlier and which the majority had already rejected. (The majority had voted for it to be painted dark grey or black). Seemingly Mr Brown-Constable had undertaken this work himself, without any notice to the leaseholders, and before the actual refurbishment works had started. Not surprisingly Mr Fortunati wanted to know who would be paying for the paint and for this unwanted/unapproved job.
Like the other leaseholders, Mr Fortunati struggled to understand how MHML could be generating sav- ings without changing the scope of the works or changing the contractor. He enquired of Mr Brown- Constable whether AR Lawrence had agreed to do the same works for less. He wanted Mr Brown-Constable to share with the leaseholders a detailed schedule indicating exactly what works were