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“HOW DID YOU THINK MHML WERE FUNDING THE NEW LIGHTING?”
MHML claim that during a six hour forty five minute Board Meeting on 23 May 2014
attended by Directors Mrs Hillgarth, Segar Karupiah and Paul Brown-Constable, that a unani- mous decision was taken to attempt making savings, anyway possible, from anticipated cheapest contractor’s tender.
i) In a letter dated 27 February 2014 our Surveyor supplied the tendered costings which included AR Lawrence for £76,101 excluding vat - (and the cheapest)
nn) Relevant references in support - copies of which are attached:
ii) to this MHML added 15% (£11,415) to cover our Surveyor’s fees, CDM, misc etc iii) this resulted in a revised budget of £87,516.15 excluding vat
iv) to this MHML added vat @ 20% (£17,503) resulting in a total budget of £105,019 to include vat and fees and published our s.20 Notice dated 22 June 2014
v) In our Surveyor’s letter dated 13 December 2013 he makes clear “I have included for cleaning the artificial stone surfaces etc etc....I have made this a provisional item at this stage in the event that you should subsequently decide to omit this item of work following receipt of ten- ders. He continues “I have also included a £4000 general contingency sum” and he goes on “regarding the internal works ....I have omitted the re-spraying of the liftwell cage and lift doors...the specification does not include any allowance for works to the lighting/emergency lighting... as I understand you are dealing with these matters separately....”
He continues “Regarding the likely cost of the proposed work, you advised me ...that you had funds available in respect of the external works in the order of £55,000 plus fees and vat and further funds available for the internal works in the order of £15,000 plus fees and vat. In my opinion, this is unlikely to be sufficient to cover all the specified works, particularly the works to the common parts. However rather than omit items from the Specifications at this stage, it would obviously be easier to assess/review the project with regard to costs once tenders have been obtained and the actual costs are known.”
In a subsequent Surveyor’s letter dated 24 January 2014 he makes clear his fees based on final contract cost and other fees to be taken into consideration.
In a subsequent Surveyor’s letter dated 14 July 2014 (which “the copied to AR Lawrence” you have variously referred to as significant) he states: “Further to your email of 9 July 2014....I have now placed instructions with AR Lawrence...to proceed in the amount of £63,828 plus vat
He continues: “I have also amended the original Specification to reflect the agreed reductions in the scope of works...”
vi) Consequently I consider your scurrilous reference to “pleading poverty” to reduce the works to- tally invalid and as for needing authorisation of leaseholders to reduce the workings invalid. As Landlord we had the authority to amend workings which were not in any way required to remain within our Head Lease covenants and which had no detrimental effect whatsoever on leaseholders or their finances. It must be quite obvious our management decisions were to protect leaseholder’s finances.
vii) As can be noted from our Surveyor’s letter dated 13 December 2013 he states: “I have omitted the re-spraying of the liftwell cage and lift doors...the specification does not include any al- lowance for works to the lighting/emergency lighting... as I understand you are dealing with these matters separately....”
viii) If you revisit Mrs Hillgarth’s two initial quotations from her preferred contractor, Wade, dated 3 July 2012 and 23 January 2013, and indeed Hemi dated 3 July 2012 you will note these items above in (vii) were requested by her, along with other workings, to be costed.
PLEaSE rEFEr to variouS attaCHED “PDF/FuRtheR ReFeRenCes” in SuPPort oF arguMEnt