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1. Claim for reimbursement consequent upon failure by Defendants to follow procedures required by Section 20 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 - £250 statutory cap on the liability of the leaseholders.
In connection with a substantial refurbishment project at Mitre House in 2014 the Defendants failed to follow statutory requirements in respect of a consultation notice approved by the leaseholders (including the Claimant) under Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Instead of arranging for all the refurbishment work to be carried out by the approved contractor (AR Lawrence) the Second Defendant covertly carried out much of the work himself, without informing the leaseholders or seeking their approval and the First Defendant paid itself for this work, without the authority of the leaseholders, from sen/ice charge reserves collected from the leaseholders.
(comment/reply) Correspondence to date has amply evidenced the misinformation of this accusation and if that same correspondence is still considered insufficient I would refer you to the attached audio recording of a comment made by Mrs Hillgarth during a Board Meeting on 23 May 2014 being a short clip from a 6hr 45mins and one of several on file further substantiating conversations and agreements made by Mrs Hillgarth to Mr Brown-Constable over a period of 5 years. (end comment/reply)
Nor did the scheme of work as ultimately carried out by the Defendants comply with the scheme previous- ly agreed with the leaseholders. It involved an entirely different colour scheme, included additional works which had not been approved, and excluded certain works which had been approved.
(comment/reply) Correspondence to date has amply evidenced the misinformation of this accusation and if that same correspondence is still considered insufficient I would refer you to the attached audio recording of a comment made by Mrs Hillgarth during a Board Meeting on 23 May 2014 being a short clip from a 6hr 45mins and one of several on file further substantiating conversations and agreements made by Mrs Hillgarth to Mr Brown-Constable over a period of 5 years. (end comment/reply)
In the circumstances (namely that the Defendants were not authorized by the leaseholders to carry out work in respect of the said refurbishment scheme, nor to receive payment for such work from the service charge reserves belonging to the leaseholders) the charges made by the Defendants to the service charge reserves were neither reasonable nor reasonably incurred within the meaning of Section 19 of the Act. The Claimant therefore seeks reimbursement for her pro rata share of the reserves improperly paid away to the First Defendant. Further, or in the alternative, the Claimant relies on the regulations to limit the amount recovered by the Defendants through the service charge reserves to the statutory cap of £250.00 per leaseholder.
(comment/reply) Correspondence to date has amply evidenced the misinformation of this accusation and if that same correspondence is still considered insufficient I would refer you to the attached audio recording of a comment made by Mrs Hillgarth during a Board Meeting on 23 May 2014 being a short clip from a 6hr 45mins and one of several on file further substantiating conversations and agreements made by Mrs Hillgarth to Mr Brown-Constable over a period of 5 years.(end comment/reply)
The Claimant therefore now seeks reimbursement of the sum of £11,514, being her pro rata (one ninth) proportion of the overall amount of £105,877 charged to the service charge reserves, less £250 in respect of the statutory cap.
(comment/reply) We will rely on the Court’s appraisal of the attached audio file to determine the validity of such a claim and others made, and request of the Court to consider, in light of comments agreements and understandings made by Mrs Hillgarth at this meeting, our position as regards Mrs Hillgarth’s proven defamatory, slanderous and libellous comments and statements made in this Particulars of Claim, her own Witness Statement dated 10 August 2016, s.22 Notice dated 26 August 2016 and in various other correspondence during 2014 and more recently 23 March 2016 to date from herself and her Solicitor, which were also made to multiple third parties, RBK&C, our freeholders and other lessees all of which is well evidenced in correspondence to date. Our denials to accusations made by Mrs Hillgarth are fully sub- stantiated in the audio file of 23 May 2014 and others on file. We fully appreciate that The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) permits a company to lawfully record conversations only to estab- lish facts and any recording retained must be relevant to that business and only used for that business. (end comment/reply)