My landlord, Stevenage Homes Ltd., has issued the details for “repairs” to The Towers.
They normally just issue a bill detailing the actual costs. But they are obliged in law to provide a break down if requested.
the man, the place
The last couple of years I have requested a breakdown and successfully challenged some of the costs.
Last year, there were a lot of extra charges to do with fire doors. It took over three months to resolve. I don’t think they ever found the receipts for the work carried out.
This year there was a new process in place. Things are supposed to have improved. It’s started out badly.
I asked for the breakdown on 29th September and I was told that they had been “inundated with queries regarding the actuals.” I eventually received the breakdown on October 23rd.
The latest “repair” bill includes over £3000 for responses to fire alarms. This is a considerable increase on last year.
|
2008 |
2009 |
| Fire alarm related |
£629.09 |
£3001.04 |
| Total invoiced |
£14073.12 |
£7293.93 |
As far as I am aware there were no fires in the block, so all these alarms were either false alarms or the results of faults in the system.
I raised the following questions:
- Why there is such large increase over last years costs.
- Why there are sometimes multiple invoices for the same incident.
- Why one incident cost £1043.93, when the usual cost is between £80 – £280
I have received a reply, saying my enquiry has been passed on to the manager, Michael Olawepo.
He’s the guy who wants to increase our management fee by 700%.
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I suspected that Stevenage Homes overcharged for maintenance work last year. I have been trying to get some of the money refunded Some good news on this, I received the following email from Anne Hensley,
Hi Tim
As mentioned at the last meeting, the charge of £1177.41 is going to be removed from all leaseholders (pro rata) repairs charge. I am currently waiting for my manager to advise me with regard to the cost of the fire door to the electrical cupboard (£2428). He is investigating the cost of the door for me.
The removal of the first item will result in a credit of approx £26 to each leaseholders service charge account. Hopefully I will receive information relating to the second item under query before I go on annual leave next Wednesday. However if I am not in a position to give a final amount to credit to your account, it would be acceptable for you to withhold at least £26 from the amount due on the understanding that this will be resolved during April.
As you can see I’ve copied Angelina Romano from income maximisation in to this email so that she is aware of the situation and will not chase leaseholders if they withhold some of their service charges as stated above.
I will be in touch as soon as I receive my manager’s comments.
Regards
Anne Hensley
So that is probably £52 back from the extra money levied. Which is just over half.
The thing I found most surprising about this is that the procurement department could not justify these costs. I am pretty sure if we went to a tribunal they would have to do so, or we could refuse to pay anything.
It all sounds a bit chaotic at Stevenage Homes / Borough Council at the moment.
At least we can withhold payment until April, at least according to one part of Stevenage Homes we can.
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Three months later and am still waiting for a reply.
In December I queried several of the items listed by Stevenage Homes as repairs on The Towers, but have yet to here anything useful back.
When I was at the leaseholders’ meeting on Feb. 18, I had a word with Anne Hensley.
She apologised very nicely about not answering my email, and not getting back to me sooner. Stevenage homes are undergoing some kind of external audit, which is taking up a lot of time.
Anne did tell me that one of the items on the list was a mistake and so will be removed.
She finally managed to get a receipt from the procurement department which showed that they did indeed paid £2500 for the door. But as they only appear to be paying £500 for fire doors elsewhere and no one seems able to justify the extra cost, maybe the cost will not be passed onto us.
I suggested that I could get an external quote for a fire door, but she did not think that was necessary.
I still have not heard back from Stevenage Homes notifying me of the amount the service charge has been reduced by. The account is supposed to be settled at the end of this month.
I will have to email Anne again to see where this is going.
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