Flat leaseholders at Arlington House in Margate have recouped a massive £93,607 in electricity costs from 12 years of effectively subsidising telecommunication equipment on the building’s roof.
Whilst leaseholders at Margate’s Arlington House have suspected for two decades that electricity from the residential supply has been powering aerials on the top of the building, they have never been able to obtain definitive proof. However, a recent letter from the building’s management company has revealed £93,607.60 has been credited back to their service charge. This represents 12 years of electricity usage.
Several lessees have tried to investigate the suspected usage over the years. All have met a brick wall and denials from the head lessee, Freshwater, and various management companies.
However, some 60 electricity invoices from supplier, SSE SWALEC, relating to 2020 were disclosed last year and this led to numerous questions about unit costs and the number of units consumed – along with matters relating to Climate Change Levy (CCL) and rates of VAT.
CCL is only payable by commercial users and VAT on residential use is 5% rather than 20%. However, some of the disclosed invoices showed those additional elements having been charged to lessees on consumption via the residential meter – and then credited back on later, revised bills.
Arlington lessee, John Moss, said: ‘’This has been a protracted investigation to get to the truth of the extent of the commercial usage. I have had to chase the current management company, Parsons Son & Basley (PS&B) to obtain all the relevant electricity invoices from four years ago.
“It subsequently transpired that O2 had been sourcing its electricity from our residential meter rather than its own independent supply.’
“The Arlington House situation should sound an alert to the lessees of all high rise buildings with telecoms equipment on the roof. I advise other domestic residents to carry out checks to ensure that they are not paying for electricity used by commercial tenants.
“The word of the landlord or building manager cannot always be believed. It is also concerning that commercial companies may be avoiding payment of CCL and VAT.’’
The £93,607.60 overcharge has been credited back to all current lessees, despite much of the sum having been paid in the first instance by former lessees who have since died or sold up.
The high electricity costs for flat leaseholders has been the subject of various Tribunal Hearings with a hearing in 2009- dealing with years 2002 to 2008 – saying action was needed to ensure that telecommunication aerials were separately metered. This was repeated at a hearing in 2019, when the Judge dealing with service charges from 2013 to 2017 stated that third party usage should be properly measured and priced.
“It has been a long, convoluted and quite frustrating process. However we have finally managed to agree a payment of £93,607.60 from the telecoms operators back into the service charge accounts.”
PS&B says the operator will now be metered with recovered amounts being credited back on a quarterly basis.
Will help to pay towards the new windows.
New windows and other associated works will cost £6,000,000.
£93,000 does not make much of a dent in that bill.
i dont know why they just dont pull it down , its an awful 1960,s eyesore , once they have cleared that blot on the landscape , they could pop along the seafront and flatten that turner centre !
This is the typical mindless comment whenever Arlington House is mentioned.
Where are you going to build 142 houses to accommodate the Arlington residents and who is going to pay for them ?
Very well said John, they never look at the size of the foot print = what’s a foot print>?
To some it’s a brutalist gem, second homes to show off on Instagram. Has always divided opinion.
But this article is about a massive deception which has ripped off those, who can’t afford it, for over a decade. What a scandal.
SP45- I think it’s a brutalist gem which needs looking after.
To some it’s a Brutalist gem – a second home to show off on Instagram. Has always divided opinion.
But this article is about a massive deception which has ripped off those, who can’t afford it, for over a decade. What a scandal.
I agree with you RW, about Arlington. This ugly building should meet the same fate as The Gorbals. Just demolish it!
If you read the article EU, it’s actually not about that. But people never miss an opportunity to knock it. Years of neglect have left it in the state its in. But with an ineffective residents association, a ferociously litigious landlord and now many more flats rented out or as second homes, the block needs people like Mr Moss to fight their corner. Good for him. Give the man a gong ..or a job.
Cost a fortune to take that down.
Why don’t they constitute an RTM Company and prevent the freeholder from running the show? All the freegolder dows is making money out of the residents and adding 0 value.
RTM is all very well in theory but it would not have any control over the commercial telecoms on the roof and the landlord would still receive those rents running into many tens of thousands of pounds a year.
Furthermore, the RTM would have to fund all the repairs to the building following decades of neglect by the landlord.
On the face of it this appears to be a clear case of mismanagement and incompetence or worse with the passive association of third parties. This does throw into doubt the management accounting systems of the previous property management company Trinity Estates along with the present property management company Parsons Son and Basley and of course Freshwater the head lease holder whose tenure covers the the entire overcharging period .
That’s quite a big overcharge! Surely someone along the way must have known what was going on – landlord, freeholder, agent. Hopefully will get more investigation by the powers that be, (and the VAT man?). Unless of course there were vested interests in keeping it covered up for so long.
TDC are equally inept when it comes to leaseholder charges ( though the numbers are no where near as high) electricity costs are something tdc seem incapable of working out, when asked for the invoices for a year, they sent 61 electricity bills as pdf’s i gave up looking through them when in the first 10 i opened 3 were for seemingly random different meters from other buildings tdc controls. The inept passing on information from the incompetent , they then get very defensive when you point out they’re utterly useless. Not had a correct leasehold bill in over 10 years, you’d think that having got it wrong so many times a bit of effort would be made, but no. Which rather suggests the problems are baked into the system, of course that’s convenient as the errors are always in the councils favour.
Recent Convert,
This is typical of what happens when lessees have the audacity to question service charge accounts ! It is quite normal to be inundated with paperwork and invoices – some of which may be duplicated or indeed relate to other properties.
If you sit down with all the paperwork and go through it steadily – you may well find that you have actually been charged for the invoices relating to other properties.
Any landlord, private or local authority, has to provide invoices to substantiate the service charge. If it is not accurate and the landlord does not ammend it you can take the matter to the First Tier Property Tribunal.
It sounds like theft of electricity to me. I thought that was a criminal offence. And what about the VAT. Has that been paid over to HMRC. Joe Public can be fined or jailed for theft and fraud but big companies get away with it.
How absolutely disgusting. Just one thing after another for the poor leaseholders at this place.
My cousin had a flat there for more than 10 years, sold up in 2020. How does she get her share of the overpayment credit? She was one of those leaseholders who took Trinity, Freshwater et al to tribunal.
I am sorry but it appears your cousin has lost out – as I outlined to the press.
The landlord and managing agent have taken the easy option of crediting some £700 to each of the current leaseholder’s service charge accounts. That sum will then be offset against this year’s service charge.
Nobody gets to see an actual refund of the hard cash they have previously paid out to the landlord in respect of the electricity consumed by the landlord’s tenants on the roof.
Requests for details as to how the overcharge sum has been calculated have been ignored. I doubt that compound interest has been included on these monies that have been misappropriated for so many years.
Why is that appalling eyesore still there? It should, have been flattened for the good of all a VERY long time ago.
Merlin,
You are clearly bereft of any Wisdom whatsoever.
Somebody has already beaten you to your predictable, inane comment.
Have you got the money to (a) purchase alternative accommodation for 106 private leaseholders, (b) purchase the building and the remaing 36 flats from Freshwater, and only then (c) pay for the actual demolition?