The leaseholders at Chichester Court deliver a blunt message to former manager Dudley Joiner. But he claims he cannot return the money as the RTM company is illegal, and there are other issues, too
Leaseholders in Chichester Court, a retirement site in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex have told property manager Dudley Joiner to return their £27,000 sinking fund.
Mr Joiner won’t give the money back unless the directors of the Chichester Court Right To Manage Company Limited sign some form of indemnity agreement as he believes the company is illegal.
He also accuses LKP of “repeated public harassment and regurgitation” by mentioning his seven-year ban on being a company director until the year 2000.
Judge Edward Evans-Lombe described Mr Joiner as “markedly cavalier” with other people’s money in 1993.
Mr Joiner’s Team Property Management was managing the Chichester Court site after it won right to manage from the Hanover housing association.
This was facilitated by Mr Joiner’s Right To Manage Federation Limited, which is not a federation but a company of which Mr Joiner is the sole director.
Relations between Team and the residents soured and the company was sacked as the property manager, with local firm Pepper Fox of Eastbourne taking over.
Mr Joiner says he is holding on to the contingency fund because Chichester Court is two buildings and following the Triplerose decision its right to manage company is no longer legally valid.
“The legal position is that Chichester Court RTM is not a legal RTM Company,” Mr Joiner told LKP, in correspondence copied to Communities Secretary Sajid Javid, local MP Huw Merriman and the three patron MPs of LKP (Sir Peter Bottomley, Sir Ed Davey and Jim Fitzpatrick).
“That is not just our view it is also the view of the lawyers at the Land Registry. In consequence, we requested an indemnity from the directors as Team Property Management was itself vulnerable to an allegation of acting ultra vires [if it returned the money].”
LKP informed Mr Joiner: “Whatever your interpretation of the Land Registry’s views on the legal status of Chichester Court RTM Co Limited, it is the company that employed your company Team Property Management to manage the site and as a result your company Team raised service charges and held in trust the £27,000 contingency funds.
“So you now appear to want to be indemnified for handing over these funds that, in your view, you should not have had in the first place.
“The one issue here that seems very easy to resolve is you ceasing your involvement immediately.”
However, Mr Joiner raises other disputes at Chichester Court, which may suggest some financial settlement is demanded from the pensioners.
“This is not the only issue at Chichester Court that needs resolution,” Mr Joiner writes.
“Due to the directors’ failure to follow the management agreement there is no determinable termination date and the process by which the management was transferred to Pepper Fox is undocumented and confusing.
“It is necessary to fix that date so that liabilities can be correctly apportioned. The on-site scheme manager has made an unfair dismissal claim against TPM. In the circumstances this was unjustified and we require a settlement of that dispute.”
LKP has suggested that Mr Merriman intercede in the dispute.
Chichester Court is not the first site to fall foul of Team Property Management.
It departed acrimoniously at Quadrangle House in Stratford, east London. Again, it was appointed after Mr Joiner’s RTMF Limited had secured right to manage.
Right to manage promoter calls it a day at Quadrangle House
Dudley Joiner, of the Right To Manage Federation and Team Property Management, has resigned the management contract at Quadrangle House in east London citing a “dysfunctional relationship” with the RTM company. His decision last week ends months of worsening acrimony at the 102-flat site in Stratford, which in 2010 he took to right to manage […]
Indeed, at one point Mr Joiner was the sole director of Quadrangle House RTM Co Limited employing himself as Team Property Management to manage the place.
Mr Joiner is indignant that LKP has raised the issue of his ban on being a company director.
“Whatever the merits of the judgement 30 years ago, the law says I paid the penalty and should be able to move on.
“Your repeated public harassment and regurgitation of those events, about which you know very little, betrays another agenda.
“For the record, it was Team Property Management that terminated its contract at the Quadrangle. I note that neither you, nor Peter Bottomley has had the courage to meet face to face on disputed issues, despite your earlier offers to do so.”
Mr Joiner is invited to make further comment on the issue of Chichester Court if he wishes to do so.
Related posts:
Dudley Joiner: Not relevant that I was disqualified from being a company director for 7 years
Dudley Joiner: It is not relevant that I was disqualified from being a company director for 7 years
Quadrangle House residents seek to regain control of their RTM
Freemont Property Managers in show-down over RTM at Grace Darling House
CHICHESTER COURT
I do not favour the public debate of private disputes (least of all in a blog) as it can easily enflame the situation and frustrate the prospects of a settlement. However, In order to address the allegations and insinuations made by this post I will make a brief statement of facts.
On 21st July 2017 I had a meeting with Martin Easton, director Chichester Court RTM Company Limited. On 22nd July Mr Easton wrote an email to me stating “Thank you for your time at our meeting yesterday, I feel that we have reached an amicable solution to complete the termination of our agreement. I have outlined to Gill the outcome of our verbal agreement, subject to the other Directors and residents agreeing to our proposals below”.
On 24th July Mr Easton wrote a further email stating “We had a directors meeting this morning and we are all pleased we can take this forward as per our agreement on Friday 21st”.
The key points of this agreement were as follows: –
1. The date of termination of the Management Agreement between CCRTM and Team Property Management (TPM) shall be 28th November 2016.
2. Wendy Bryan (scheme manager) will send a letter to TPM withdrawing her claim for unfair dismissal and will advise ACAS the claim is withdrawn. (Notwithstanding the termination and the fact that TPM was not paid service charges TPM had kept WB on the payroll).
3. ME to confirm to DJ the date of inspection of the flat by the valuation officer. TPM to continue to deal with the appeal of the Council Tax valuation on the scheme manager’s flat.
4. CCRTM to pay all service charge bills between 28th November 2016 and 1st April 2017 (the date of appointment of new managing agent).
5. In light of the Court of Appeal decision in Triplerose TPM will contact the landlord (Hanover) and seek a letter of agreement by which:-
(a) The Landlord will approve the appointment of TPM to manage the property from 28th November 2014 to 28th November 2016.
(b) The Landlord will receive and hold CC reserve funds (£27,000) as an interim measure.
(c) The Landlord will appoint CCRTM to manage the property from 28th November 2017 to 1st April 2017.
(d) The Landlord will approve and appoint a managing agent democratically selected by leaseholders to manage from 1st April 2017.
6. ME will call a meeting of the directors of CCRTM to approve the above after which the directors will hold a meeting with Pepper Fox to advise of the agreement.
On 21st August I emailed ME requesting clarification of the transfer of Wendy Bryan to CCRTM under TUPE and confirmation the claim for unfair dismissal was withdrawn and ACAS advised. I also requested the date the valuation officer visited the property to assess the amount of council tax payable on the managers flat. ME replied “Thanks Dudley, moving forward! Will get info asap, hopefully back to you next few days”.
Contrary to our agreement of 21st July 2017, on 29th August I received a letter from the directors of CCRTM demanding the transfer of £27,000 directly to Pepper Fox and accusing me of delaying tactics, claiming, inter alia, that “TUPE has no bearing on Wendy’s employment”, and that “Wendy’s claim against ACAS is her own personal decision”. The letter stated that “As far as Council Tax is concerned we have taken this in hand and it is no longer a problem”.
Contrary to the directors’ statements enforcement Agents on behalf of Other Council are continuing to press TPM for council tax payments and Wendy Bryan’s unfair dismissal claim remains live at ACAS.
DUDLEY JOINER
Team Property Management Limited
17th October 2017
Dudley is quoting utter garbage. Dudley states the termination date was 28.11.16 but he continued to collect Maintenance payments from several residents well into 2017. If he had returned our sinking fund as promised in his agreement none of the following would have been made public and this could have all been resolved. The Estate Manager was never given a contract/Agreement of Employment, without this how could she be TUPED over. He fails to mention he sent her wage slips but no money! This was her reason for contacting ACAS, not for unfair dismissal. He also fails ls to mention that he collected our service fund but failed to pay our contractors, some are still owed over a thousand pounds, leaving our new Managing Agent to pick up the debts and ward off the bailiffs, and very little money in our funds.
Surely a Managing Agent is there to relieve older people of stress not cause it, and give us health problems. Dudley fooled us by not allowing us to be involved, as he told us Directors do not have to do anything.
It was not until we employed new Agents that we discovered how wrong Dudley was. Unlike his bad management we are now see Accounts, Receipts and Statements and we are consulted before any work is carried out or money spent. Getting rid of Dudley has been the hardest 11 months of our lives. What Right has Joiner to dictate the Management of Chichester. Court as he was dismissed 11 months ago for failure to Manage correctly. (I could say a lot more, Dudley and knows what I m referring to!)
Dudley Joiner’s comments are mostly nonsense and a distortion of the truth so much so that even he appears to believe it himself.
Here is a true statement which can be verified by documents for all to see:
Joiner’s company,Team Property Management Ltd, was appointed to manage Chichester Court in November 2014 on a two-year agreement giving either party the right to terminate on breach of the agreement.
From the outset the management was very bad, e.g. taking 20 months to produce a residents’ information pack, 9 months to repair a broken sign, contractors not paid on our behalf and the debts passed over to our new agent. But the most serious was the failure to provide evidence of the whereabouts of the estate sinking / reserve fund, and this after 5 months of repeated requests and warnings.
On 28th November 2016 he was correctly dismissed for breach of agreement, approved by solicitors, but he refused to accept this so service charges were withheld, apart from a few worried residents to whom he continued to send demands well into the new year.
A new agent was appointed and all money should have been transferred to the new agent within a few weeks, but he has refused to do this after 11 months of repeated request.
All other issues noted by him are merely excuses and spurious reasons to avoid payment, but we now have written evidence from him that he ceased management on 28th November 2016, this we suspect to avoid outstanding payments to Contractors.
He has also stated that he has £27,000 of our money which we will accept, but he still refuses to release. The actual sum is more than £32,000 and we have a document to prove that but we will not pursue that provided we get £27,000.
Imagine the anguish suffered by vulnerable people in their twilight years seeking a happy retirement to be confronted by this despicable treatment.
Unfortunately, Chichester Court was not aware of this man’s past record, or he would never have been appointed.
We intend to pursue this further if necessary so pay us now Mr Joiner and save what is left of your reputation, if anything.
This on behalf of the Chichester Court Residents.