Page 2 - 53_PBC to Begg (Crime OCR)_12-7-16 (33pp)

2
(reply) Annual Budgets were presented to all lessees prior to year end and approved. The Budgets made clear that Management Fees were included and there were no com- ments received from any lessee until late 2014 solely due to Mrs Hillgarth’s complain- ing of everything and canvassing other lessees, including Flat 9 - (see attached ref B) who were supplied a full breakdown of fees from previous agents versus our fees, in response to an email received on 17 December 2014 from Flat 9 (Fortunati).
It is inconceivable that having a 24/7 on site attendance we would not be expected to charge for our time and costs. No Agent offers 24/7 attendance for all immediate needs. MHML only service Mitre House. I cannot see how giving a service for a fee is considered fraud. Our reasonable fees are for sending out Quarterly Demands, main- taining banking requirements, handling suppliers’ and contractors’ appointments and overseeing all workings on site, dealing with, accounting for and paying invoices when presented, and maintaining Mitre House on a 24/7 schedule. Hardly fraudulent.
Management Charges, Misrepresentation and the MHML Website.
The "Right to Manage" application, and conversion of money owed to Mrs Hillgarth. The 2014 Refurbishment, Section 20, and MHML's undisclosed charges.
. False Accounting in the 2014 Service Charge Accounts .
The key items of evidence are Witness Statements from Mrs Hillgarth and Mr Tony White, the Managing Director of AR Lawrence and Sons Ltd. Where admissions have been made in correspondence the relevant letters are numbered appropriately and attached to this Report.
(reply) The Mr. White Witness Statement (totally decimated as to veracity) was not sent to me but to multiple third parties totally ignorant of its possible errors. To date, no sight of the Mrs Hillgarth Witness Statement but if it’s as incorrect and erroneous in detailing as was Mr. White’s, it might be advisable to let me have sight of it. Third parties again will have no ability to verify or comment.
(A) Management Charges, Misrepresentation and the MHML Website
1 Under Clause 13 of Schedule 7 of the various Leases (including Mrs Hillgarth's lease) the Head Lessee is obliged to employ a firm of surveyors or managing agents "if considered to be requisite". It is clear that MHML, as Head Lessee, may employ surveyors or managing agents and charge the lessees for the cost of engaging them. Equally MHML is entitled to take the view that it does not need to employ surveyors or managing agents. However this does not necessarily mean that MHML itself, as Head Lessee, is entitled to charge for its own time, or rather for the time incurred by its own directors, in doing (or attempting to do) the work that a proper managing agent would have done. Nor to call itself a managing agent and to charge the leaseholders as though it were one. This has always been a bone of contention with a number of the leaseholders.
“This has always been a bone of contention with a number of the leaseholders”, (three actually...) - and would be more accurate to add, “and became far more contentious once Mrs Hillgarth was no longer a Director of MHML for good reasons well docu- mented and upped her disruptive canvassing of a number of leaseholders in pursuit of her own selfish agenda to further benefit her sub-letting marketing ability.”
(reply) As previously stated. We did far more than simply attempt to act as a very good managing agent. We are very good at what we do which is to maintain Mitre House in the most economic fashion possible which is where we disagreed with Mrs Hillgarth who wanted to spend funds over and above those readily available in Reserves.