Tower Hamlets Leaseholder's Association

Dear Cllr July 2008

Re. Service Charge External Audit

I am a council leaseholder living at on the . estate. You are my ward councillor. I need your help.

When I bought my home I signed a lease with the council that contains covenants, (promises) which the council has broken. The most important broken promise was to maintain my block and provide services to a reasonable standard at a reasonable cost. The council management has quite simply not been good enough to keep this promise. My quality of life has been blighted as a result.

My situation is getting more and more serious because, although I don’t get much from the council it is costing more and more. I would like to know what the council is doing with my money because there is no way the rag and bone services I get can be costing what the council says they cost.

I want to know, I have a right to know, how my money is spent. I am not asking you to do a member’s enquiry because they won’t tell you the truth for the same reason they won’t tell me. The truth is uncomfortable. What I am urging you to do is to support my demand for an external independent audit of the council’s accounts and accounting methods so that I will know for a fact that the money I pay for services and works is a cost that has been legally and reasonably incurred. When the external auditors tell me that my service charge bills are proper bills, I will pay them.

For years the council has refused to face this service charge problem and that is why I don’t trust it any more. If you want to regain my trust you will have to open the books and come clean with me. In Southwark where homeowners have similar problems the council has acted on a cross-party initiative to audit the accounts, and a top notch company of city auditors called Grant Thornton is hard at work now. If leaseholders in Southwark are getting this mark of respect after years of suspicion and conflict, I deserve no less from Tower Hamlets Council.

I have learnt that on two occasions at Full Council the majority party has not allowed members to debate the proposal to carry out an independent external audit and that there will be a third attempt to adopt this proposal at full council on October 15th. This time I expect you to vote in favour of the project which should be supported by all the political parties. It is hardly a party political issue to guarantee me accurate and fair bills, and it is unthinkable that you will play party political games at my expense.

I look forward to receiving your written response to this letter stating your support for this vital step towards openness and transparency and your personal commitment to vote for the leasehold external audit, (Motion 11.3 on 25 June 2008) when it is tabled for a third time on 15 October.

Councillor, my situation as a homeowner in Tower Hamlets is dire. Don’t let me down and I won’t let you down.

Yours sincerely