I
don’t normally subscribe to conspiracy theories
however given the lengths below which the director and
committee are prepared to go to ensure that the
receipts and invoices for the Repairs & Renewals
are not inspected every year, it's tempting to
go down that route i.e.
For
the past 3 years I and another resident have
been trying to obtain an analysis of of the
expenses shown on the annual Account - namely
the Repairs & Renewals Expenses. Unfortunately there is no
analysis because everything paid out under these
headings are lumped together and the residents
have no idea what their service charge is being
spent on and if the expenditure was legitimate
or not. When questioned on why they would
not give the details of these expenses at the AGM,
residents were informed 'because we don't have
to'.
One
possible explanation which could be entertained
is that perhaps a number of illegitimate expenses
or 'guvvy
jobs' had been put through the books without
receipts or invoices under the guise of Repairs
& Renewals, and if the director and
committee allowed the accounts to be inspected,
then these anomalies would obviously come to
light, this might go a long way to explain why
the director and committee will not allow the
accounts to be scrutinised.
It
could be argued that the accounts are audited
and an external accountant is also employed to
look at the account. The accountant who
normally handles the end of year account has
been shown to make errors in the accounts - on one
occasion in
the 2012 Account £600 went missing and he put it down to a
'typing error', which it could not possibly have
been - why was that not picked up at the time?
What
the external accountant actually does is provides an
'Accountant's Report to the Landlord on the
Service Charge Statement of Accounts' and they
clearly state:
'Basis of Report: item 2 - to
check, based on a sample, whether
entries in the accounting records were
supported by receipts, other
documentation or evidence that we
inspected'.
So -
if any of us subscribed to conspiracy theories
we could have a field day because all the
elements are there in the director and
committee's actions to fuel speculation, they
don't want the residents asking questions and
looking too closely at how their Service Charge
money is spent!
