Beaumont Court Southend: £78,000 awarded to unhappy flat owners

Flat owners in Beaumont Court, Victoria Avenue, took construction firm Randal Watts to court after service charges increased from £950 to £2,500 in two years.

Randal Watts took charge of the building after Southend maintenance company Rylands Associates left hundreds of residents with unpaid bills when it ceased trading in 2018.

Leaseholders said the steadily rising costs that followed became difficult. A spokesman for the tenants said: “There were approximately 60 joint applicants in an application made to the First Tier Tribunal for unreasonable expenditure of the landlord and increases in service charge costs.

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“This caused financial difficulty for many people. We have recently obtained a decision in our favour for £78,757 from the tribunal although we were hoping for a lot more and there are further applications that will need to be made.”

The team represented themselves but not all accusations were upheld, with the tribunal finding in favour of Randal Watts on some of the service charges.

The spokesman added: “This has been something that we have been living every day now for years and the stress and anxiety caused is quite shocking.”

Jason Watkinson from Randall Watts said: “We defended many accusations from certain residents and were successful in proving the accusations made were false.

“Randall Watts were left in a very difficult situation during the development when the maintenance company Rylands simply departed.

“We are not a property management company, we picked up with immediate effect following Rylands swift exit and simply instructed certain maintenance contracts and services to look after the estate and our residents as it had to react quickly while it sought a new managing company.”

“The residents were awarded items that were not contracted accurately in accordance with management services law. We hadn’t awarded contracts accurately while managing the estate following Rylands departure and have been penalised.”