Page 12 - STATEMENT OF CASE re-OCR s22_1

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cluded in the "Reserves utilised" figure of £105,877 shown in the line immediately below it.
However these are mere niceties compared with the most obvious and glaring accounting error. It goes without saying that the leaseholders should have been informed in the Service Charge Ac- counts that out of the aggregate refurbishment figure of £105,877 charged to the leaseholders the sum of £31,765.21 had in fact been paid to MHML, particularly as the leaseholders had been led to expect that all the refurbishment monies would be paid to AR Lawrence - and certainly not to their own landlord.
Mr Brown-Constable claims to have saved the leaseholders money by doing some of the work himself and/or through unapproved contractors, but the leaseholders have never seen the benefit of these al- leged savings. The extent of MHML's deviation from the approved scheme will remain opaque until Mr Brown-Constable grants access to the relevant invoices from suppliers/contractors. This has been re- quested on numerous occasions and by different leaseholders - see para 9 below - but the invoices have still not been produced.
Once it has been formally confirmed to leaseholders that a contractor approved by them has been appointed to do a fixed job to a fixed specification at a fixed cost, it is misleading to the leaseholders (and potentially fraudulent on the part of MHML) to carry out the approved work (or unapproved /pre- viously unspecified work) themselves, or through others, and then to retain and/or pay to non-ap- proved contractors the money which had been paid by the leaseholders to have the work done by a single approved contractor. And this remains the case even if the aggregate cost to the leaseholders is the same as, or less than, they would have paid to the agreed contractor.
(comment/reply) We have supplied identical Accounts (since 2012) mirroring the same format and information as indicated in both our previous agents’ KFH and other Agents’ such as Knight Frank/Wellcome Trust showing the same information in their end of year Accounts.
9. Vote Rigging
In relation to the refurbishment it was clear that 6 out of 9 leaseholders (ie all except the three MHML directors) had a broadly similar view about the appropriate decor.
On 7 June 2012 Mr Brown-Constable wrote in an e-mail to Susanna Gnecco: "If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times. It doesn't matter what you or I want - its what the majority want". However he was unwilling, in practice, to respect the wishes of the majority. When alternative scenarios were put to them, 6 out of 9 flats voted for a "classic" look (as opposed to the "Belle Epoque" look favoured by Mr Brown-Constable himself). However Mr Brown-Constable engineered the vote by claiming that Samya Riad (Flat 4) had voted for "Belle Epoque" (she hadn't) and by consulting Christopher Leigh- Pemberton's tenant (Flat 8) rather than Mr Leigh-Pemberton himself.
Mr Brown-Constable actually admitted this in writing on 11 June 2012 when he wrote to Susanna Gnecco and other tenants: "I admit to everything, including unsuccessfully trying to fiddle the vote Guilty as charged." And then he simply proceeded to ride roughshod over the wishes of the majority by arranging for the premises to be decorated in the style and colour scheme which he had favoured from the outset.
It had been agreed by a majority of the tenants as part of the Section 20 process for the refurbish- ment that the common parts would be painted white and taupe. (Mr Brown-Constable disputes that there was a majority for this decor, but there was certainly no majority for the alternative "Belle Epoque" scheme favoured by Mr Brown-Constable). Be that as it may, the leaseholders had every reason to suppose that the "classic" scheme (involving white and taupe) would be adopted, since this was consistent with the clear indication Mr Brown-Constable had already given to Mr Diego Fortunati on 13 August 2014. In an e-mail of that date Mr Brown-Constable confirmed to Mr Fortunati that Mr Fortunati's choice of white (for the ceilings and dado rail) and taupe (for above and below the dado rail) could be expected to reproduce as expected without testing.
However Mr Brown-Constable subsequently had the common parts of Mitre House painted green and red, which had never been approved by the leaseholders. It was the "funky/edgy" colour scheme Mr