Page 317 - FINAL MASTER 616pp 20-6-19

You are not permitted to run a business at Mitre House (although I have evidence to show that you have abrogated to yourself part of the common parts at Mitre House to serve as your office). But even if you were allowed to run a business there, MHML is not and cannot be a managing agent in relation to Mitre House. As the Head Lessor, MHML is a principal. It cannot be both an agent and a principal in relation to the same transaction. It cannot be an agent for itself.
We have not abrogated any part of the common parts to serve as our office and no Lessee including ourselves as Directors of MHML has any right to any parts of the common parts save for entry and exit. The Head Lease to which we [Mitre House Management Limited] are required to adhere makes clear our responsibility to maintain the common parts which includes the rear yard area and basement [boiler room].
We are assuming that your reference to abrogation refers to Mrs Hillgarth’s insistence that she and other lessees had a right to the basement areas which we are now accused [abrogated?] of having withdrawn. No Lessee ever had a right and seeing as the basement area was previously cleared of Asbestos some 12 years ago [and has recently been H&S checked as required] it is still considered a somewhat no-go area unless access to the mains electricity meters and water and gas for the building is briefly required or maintenance and cleaning materials are required to be sourced and used for the benefit of the building and Lessees.
I do not consider using my flat for what is basically secretarial use to be in breach of my lease despite yet another innuendo from Mrs Hillgarth. Half the country works from home these days.
While it is true that specific qualifications are not required to serve as a managing agent, it is not true, as you asserted in your e-mail to Diego Fortunati of 18 December 2015, that a “monkey can be an Agent these days”. The role implies appropriate training and qualifications, relevant expertise, a relevant regulatory authority (such as the RICS or the Association of Residential Managing Agents), a code of conduct, professional indemnity insurance, complaints procedures and so on. I believe you are a graphic designer by qualification. Why should your lessees pay for your (unqualified) services the same sort of charge as they would have to pay for a properly qualified agent? (Indeed you are arguably extorting a higher than market charge). You have no office costs to cover, no personnel costs, no professional indemnity insurance, and no relevant expertise.
I [as you are identifying myself in your statements] beg to differ. I think even Mrs Hillgarth would agree to my oft quoted derogatory reference to Managing Agents as is well evidenced in the small bundle of correspondence I have previously supplied you with. I would propose that it is possibly not the profession nor the company that is derided [but it often is], but the various personnel they employ and with whom Lessees are required to deal with as a point of contact. Qualifications are somewhat blurred in this respect until one considers those professionals requiring certain established ones, such as Surveyors, Solicitors to name but two or indeed Graphic Designers with a DipAD.
I have had experience with Managing Agents at Mitre House for over 45 years [and indeed at quite a few other establishments] and I have at times been exasperated by some incompetence perpetrated by employees who have no obvious qualification.