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How bills keep mounting
• YOU report on the scandal of building contractors passing on their congestion zone charges to residents (Builders’ road tax, March 23). You also highlight that they then add a management fee on top.
As leaseholders know, Homes for Islington (HfI) charges 11 per cent when it adds its management fee to the whole package.
So HfI will be making something like £5,500 on this item alone, which will be part of leaseholders’ bills.
You quote a spokesman for J Murphy and Sons as saying that this charge was agreed by HfI. It’s another example of HfI’s priority of meeting spending targets rather than checking costs.
It’s no wonder that leaseholders are up in arms about huge bills when they see this kind of unchecked spending.
It seems the government is asking councils and Arms’-Length Management Organisations (Almos) to rein back their Decent Homes spending plans. Surely, it would make sense to save money all round and make certain that residents really are getting value for money. Spending money like this, simply because it’s available, is a recipe for contractors to profit at residents’ expense.
RICHARD ROSSER
Highbury estate, N5
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