LON/00BJ/LSC/2024/0347, 0348, 0349, 0664, 0764 — service charge decision

“Reading the lease carefully, it simply says that provision must be made in the accounts for a fund for long-term expenditure. This does not limit the type of costs which may be met from the reserve fund during the year.”

“While the Tribunal understands the Applicants' concern at the increase in costs for cleaning, it is not satisfied that the costs have been unreasonably incurred.”

“the Tribunal is satisfied that the Respondent was entitled to conduct the heating and cooling payment system in the way that they did and that they did not deliberately use a system designed to confuse lessees.”

“the Tribunal is satisfied that the separate provision in the service charge accounts is reasonable and the charges are payable.”

“The Tribunal has no grounds for thinking that the insurance premium is higher than it should be nor that it is not reasonable in amount.”

“Schedule 8 makes separate provision for service charges for professional fees in collecting the service charges … There is no basis for requiring them to be covered by other charges.”

“Both Ms Mackay and Ms Edney stated in very emphatic terms that they had "never" received to date a single bill from InSite with actual meter readings and when they had asked for one, they did not receive "any" and had still not received "any". This was immediately shown not to be true as the documents disclosed by the Respondent during these proceedings included a number of bills, correctly addressed, which did have actual meter readings.”

“Mr Southam, amongst other serious allegations of deliberate misconduct, alleged that the Respondent's actions were intended to "obfuscate" and hide from the lessees their poor management. There was absolutely no evidence on the basis of which such allegations could be made. The Applicants' inability to think of an alternative explanation says more about them than it does about the Respondent and is not evidence of wrongdoing.”

“It is a constant refrain in Tribunal proceedings that lessees assume the lower figure must be the right one. It never seems to occur to lessees to question whether the lower figure might be an under-charge for some reason, for example due to a poor quality of service.”

“Mr Southam, Ms Mackay and Ms Edney all sought to rely on a particular example which, on their understanding, showed a difference between their reading and InSite's reading which would constitute an outrageously unlikely amount of consumption. It turned out that they had simply misread one of the digits on the poorly-scanned document with small writing.”