Thread by @LiamSpender

1/14 FirstPort (or should that be LastPort?) making Bernie Madoff look small time. Again.

dailymail.co.uk/property/artic…

I personally stand to pay £1,358.50, which is an inflated figure to pay FirstPort's fees and because its a crap negotiator.

2/14 So far, in exchange for their £34,000-odd fee they have:

1/ Copied and pasted a specification of works prepared by a contractor.

The copy and paste job is so bad that they have copied into the document "(C) SCCI AlphaTrack Page 5"

3/14

2/ They then did not upload the specification of works to the FirstPort MyHome website, as twice promised. It took about 2 weeks to get it out of them.

3/ The Major Works team hasn't conducted a tender. They're recycling quotes obtained by the onsite staff

4/14 The second section 20 notice the Major Works team sent is defective. It didn't include a Statement of Observations, although one followed about a week later.

They've also calculated the payback period using a cost that has never actually been applied at the site.

5/14 As far as I know, they insist on paying Countryside £112,246, supposedly to buy 20-odd year old cable.

In the last five years, Countryside has charged the site more than £700,000 to rent the existing system. Renting the system for the last 20 years has cost over £1 million

6/14 I've seen the terms of the Countryside contract.

The £112,246 FirstPort is paying appears to be a termination fee that only applies if the contract is terminated during its 20 year term.

The term expired in July 2020.

7/14 When I put the above to FirstPort I was told simply that "Countryside owns the cable".

I "own" my flat. It doesn't mean I can ask £450 million for it.

Would FirstPort be paying this fee if it were their money they were spending?

8/14 FirstPort also has in its hands quotes for *brand new cable* at £47k and £96k.

So why is it paying £112k for 21-year old cable, that I'm told only has scrap value?

I put that to FirstPort. I was told it was because otherwise they'd have to spend £27,800 on fireproofing.

9/14 And apparently it would be too disruptive, even though they are coming into the flats to replace the wall units anyway.

So, FirstPort claims it is worth spending £112,000 to avoid spending £27,800.

Would they spend their own money that way?

10/14 Adding insult to injury, the current rental contract should have ended in July 2020.

FirstPort did nothing about replacing it. We've paid £198,000 when we could have paid £51,000 with a new system.

In April 2021 we were told the current system is a "good deal".

11/14 At the same April 2021 meeting, as well as telling us that paying £140,000 for something that should cost £30,000 is a good deal, FirstPort also told us that it was impossible to replace the current system.

The reason? We'd all end up with no locks on the main doors.

12/14 The final insult is that the FirstPort fee is calculated as 10% of all costs.

That includes the £112,246.

All that cost involves is paying an invoice.

Why does FirstPort need £11,224.60 to pay *one* invoice?

13/14 The reason I approached the Daily Mail about this is because I'm sick of being ignored, lied to and patronised by FirstPort.

I dread to think what's coming when they tell us they must replace the cladding.

14/14 The bottom line is: we need statutory control of managing agents.

People like this shouldn't have access to leaseholders' money without effective control.

We also need commonhold. If residents were in charge, this wouldn't be happening.

@LKPleasehold