“Fire Fire!” That wil be £3000 please
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%.
blueyes — November 15, 2009 @ 00:11
I’m confused. Why is it that you have to pay for someone to come check on the fire alarms? I’ve never heard of such a thing. That doesn’t happen here in the states.
Tim — November 15, 2009 @ 20:26
If the alarm goes off, or if there is a fault, someone comes out to reset it.
We get charged anything form £80 to £1000 for them to do this.
LUCY — February 12, 2010 @ 13:17
Tim, they just like to invent “new charges”. I have complained about overcharging for repairs many many times, nothing happens.
Tim Neale — February 12, 2010 @ 15:04
I still have not heard back from Stevenage Homes about this!
And now we have the management fee requests.