Mr A.M thought that when he moved out of his property it would be sufficient to inform Peverel/Firstport of his new address and that they would advise E&M accordingly. Though understandable, this was an error on the part of Mr A.M.
So though he received service charge demands from Peverel/Firstport(which he paid promptly) the Ground Rent demand was sent to his old address.
It was only when a pre court action letter was passed to him by his tenant that he realised the error and immediately sent a cheque for £50 for the ground rent, but refused to pay an administration charge of £50.
E&M refused to waive the charge and returned the cheque. As is the way of E&M a simple error escalated, so that it ended up impacting on the next service charge demand for which further administration charges were added followed by legal costs followed by J.B Leitch taking Mr A.M to the Upper Tribunal.
Every justification for the administration charges was dismissed by the Upper Tribunal including costs associated with preparation for a "forfeiture of lease action" since as was pointed out the debt was only £50 and not the minimum of £350 so no such preparation action could have been taken.
In ruling in favour of Mr A.M the Tribunal noted that this matter could and should have been readily rectified at the outset. That as soon as Mr A.M was aware of the debt he paid immediately and E&M should have realised that a genuine error had occurred since Mr A.M had an excellent payment record.
The behaviour of E&M has been well documented in the past including a Parliamentary Early Day Motion 362.
This situation occurs when a company is so dependent on "penalty charges" for its income.
