Re 01/7795902/26
Hello,
With regard to Detective Sergeant Cross’s letter of the
17th of August I have to say that I strongly disagree with it. In particular the statement that “Whilst you
strongly dispute the explanations provided by Prime Property Management, there
is currently no direct evidence demonstrating that funds were dishonestly
appropriated, that any individual personally benefited from the transaction
identified or that accounting records were knowingly falsified with criminal
intent.”
But perhaps this is because I have not laid out properly the evidence on which I believe a prosecution could be mounted. There is more evidence of abuse of accounting than just one £2700 transaction.
There are four issues
1 The two versions of the accounts generated 8 days apart but £3,964 different
After the accounts were issued to us and approved an emergency edit was applied 8 days later and we were asked to re-approve the accounts. This is a highly unusual event that I have never experienced before. As Prime was not willing to explain it I had to institute a Section 21/22 process. Despite making a Surplus in 2025 and paying £3750 into Reserves the Company’s assets fell from £15894 in 2024 to £14841 in 2025? A loss of £1053? How? Prime spent the money.
2 Cash in Hand and
at the Bank
The company’s cash assets number on the Accounts does not match the Bank Statement. The matching of these two numbers is something that the accountant specifically signs off on. So the company doesn’t even have £14881. It has £12290. How can a professional accountant managing funds of only £12000 be £2550 out “by accident”? You simply copy and paste the number.
3 Refusal to have
an AGM
Prime have never given us a logical explanation for any of this. They refuse to hold an AGM and Refuse to answer questions in any meaningful way even after I went to the TPO.
4 Discrepancies between the 2025 Prime
Bank Statement, the Accounts and the Charge Sheet
Prime’s own charge sheet supplied via the Section 21/22 Request does not match with their declared charges. Prime Property Management had taken ~£6915. But on the accounts had only declared ~£4679… This creates a shortfall of ~£2234.
5 The charging of
accountancy costs for two separate years simultaneously.
Possibly the most inexplicable discrepancy of all... The costs of the 2025 Accounts appear chronologically before the costs of the 2024 Accounts on Primes charge sheet. And in actuality on the Bank Statement both appear to have taken place on exactly the same day despite Prime only being on a yearly contract (how did they even know they’d be required to do the 2025 accounts?) and these events supposedly only needing to take place on an annual basis.
To briefly touch on the other issues in your letter you state that “There are no vulnerable victims identified, no safeguarding concerns, no ongoing threat to the public and no evidence of wider criminality”. There is plenty of evidence of wider criminality with regards to the Managing Agent industry and indeed Prime. I know of many Directors of other RTM companies who are in a constant cycle of appealing nonsense service charges to the FTT or the Small Claims Court. One tells me that he appeals charges to the Small Claims Court every year. Well, if you’re appealing them every year then these are not accidents/mistakes, are they? I do not intend to waste my life going round the hamster wheel of appealing charges I know are obviously fraudulent when I could just report them as fraud. If you want I can put you in contact with other RTM Directors who have similar issues with Prime (and other Managing Agents). I just put this case of fraud in because it is so obvious I think it would be hard to argue it was anything else? How can you make two accounting charges for separate years on the same date? That’s surely just not possible – either chronologically or mathematically? How can you get the Cash in the Bank value wrong when it is a matter of simple transcription that you yourself have to sign off as specifically correct?
With regard to vulnerability, we have many people in these flats who are vulnerable. Ms D my fellow director is in her mid-70s and finds all these shenanigans extremely stressful. Just how vulnerable do you have to be to get Police service? Meanwhile downstairs the Kiosk shop is regularly struggling to pay their service charge on time because I have to keep increasing it as everything gets more expensive. There isn’t financial leeway for me to keep hiking their service charge because the Managing Agent has embezzled again. They will go bust.
You mention violent crime. Well, if as happened the other year someone breaks the stand pipe or tries to raid the shop … Yes, that costs us. But we can get that money back from our Insurers so the maximum cost is the £500 Excess. I cannot take out insurance against Embezzlement. If £2000 is gone then it is gone. Perhaps when your officers are sitting outside the Kiosk shop eating ice cream and lollipops they should cogitate on the fact that at this rate it won’t be there anymore. Then who loves ya baby? As Kojak used to say…
Normally where Fraud is discovered in a business you can simply just sack the Fraudster. It’s not as simple as that for us. The Managing Agent is in charge of collecting the Service Charge and paying all the contractors. If I was to sack them mid-contract it could get very messy. Also as the Bank Account is in their name I have none of the usual protections of the Banking Codes, Chargeback, FCA etc to protect our assets. Bluntly we are a sitting duck for Fraud.
I mean, what’s the point in having a protected Section 42 Bank Account which is supposed to be Ring Fenced if the fence has all these holes in it and you are doing nothing to maintain the fence?
You mention the FTT. Well, the FTT was set up for Leaseholders who wish to challenge their Service Charges. I do not wish to challenge my Service Charge. I set my own Service Charge. So that is not the problem. The problem is not the level of my service charge, it is the miscategorisation of criminal matters as civil matters. The FTT was not set up for the underlying capital dematerialising. Yes, I could go to the TPO but their maximum payout is £1000 and they said they can’t adjudicate this matter as it is criminal and told me to send it back to you. I could go to the Small Claims court but they are set up to deal with contractual failure and outstanding debts. I’m not sure even what form to fill out for “they nicked our money”. Perhaps you can advise?
You say Forensic Accounting would be required. I looked into full re-accounting and got a sum of £2000 – we could fund this - but why bother if you’re not going to even try and get a conviction? It’s not all about the money. It’s about the problem that finding Managing Agents that don’t steal is like trying to find a dog with no nose. The problem just gets worse and worse and worse because no one is policing them… as to “no ongoing threat” who knows what’s happened since? If they play hardball I can only see the money ONCE A YEAR?!
Thank you
Anthony Miller
Here is all the evidence I have:
1 The two versions of the accounts generated 8 days apart but £3,964
different
The accounts in question were produced twice – 8 days apart. In between the first and second version a figure of “£3964” was subtracted from the Reserve Fund figures with explanation. It is the only figure that is different between the two versions of the 2025 accounts.
The genesis all the problems was a bizarre email send to us on the 28th April 2025 which read:
“I would like to bring to your attention that a revision has been made
to the accounts due to a balancing charge brought forward from the previous
financial year to the amount of £3,964. As this amount cannot be charged to homeowners due to the time elapsed,
it has been transferred to the reserve fund, decreasing the balance from
£14,592 to £10,628. Please note that
I have sent the revised set of accounts for signing again. Once approved, I
will circulate a copy to all homeowners and issue the surplus for that
financial year.”
To put this in context, I had been chasing Prime for four and half months in order to get them to conclude the accounting process for the 2025 financial year. They had already provided one version (on 30th of March) to sign off that we had already signed off when they wrote to us again (on 28th of April ) saying the accounts had now been “revised” with a balancing charge for the previous financial year (2024). This is highly unusual behaviour to say the least.
These versions of the accounts are IDENTICAL except that the Reserve Funds have been adjusted crudely by £3,964 in the second set on the basis that there is a “balancing charge brought forward from the previous financial year”. Each year’s accounts are designed to be self-contained starting on the 1st of January and ending on the 31st of December.
In 2024 we made a Surplus and the accounts saying so were signed off by myself, my fellow Director, accountants “Simpson Wreford & Partners” and Helena Smith on behalf of Prime Property Management Limited. So how can they be suddenly wrong now and this has only been noticed and corrected within 8 days?
How can they in only 8 days have suddenly decided that their own previous accounts are …wrong by nearly £4000?
We asked and this lot of nonsense was the explanation I received.
Dear Josephine,
[Note they don’t write directly to me but to my fellow director in an attempt to
conceal information].
I am emailing to confirm receipt
of Anthony's email below, and would like to provide some clarification regarding
the matters raised.
The surplus of £3,153 shown in
the 2025 Service Charge Accounts relates to the financial year 1 January 2025
to 31 December 2025. In accordance with the terms of the lease, this surplus
will be credited back to homeowners through the Year End Balancing Charge,
which will be applied against future service charge demands. We anticipate this
will be processed by the end of this week.
The deficit of £3,964, referenced in my email dated 28
April, relates to a period prior to both the 2025 financial year and Prime’s
management of 50 - 72 Chichester Road. As this is a historic deficit, it has
been transferred to the reserve fund, reducing the reserve balance from £14,592
to £10,628.
We appreciate that the previous
managing agent did not address this deficit appropriately at the time, and we
understand that this may be frustrating. However, given that the deficit
relates to a historic period and a significant amount of time has now passed,
we are unfortunately unable to recover these costs from current homeowners. Any
attempt to do so would carry a considerable risk of dispute and potential
non-recovery.
Please be assured that, moving
forward, all future surpluses and deficits will be dealt with strictly in
accordance with the lease by applying credits or debits through the year-end
balancing process. This is the approach being followed in relation to the 2025
accounts.
Should you have any further
questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Kind Regards,
Demi Williams MTPI Junior Service Charge Manager
This makes no sense.
Although Concept Property Management were indeed in charge in 2024,
Prime did their accounts (or paid “Simpson Wreford & Partners” to) and all
these matters were concluded in 2024. If
there was an unnoticed deficit where does it come from? Putting the accounts side by side shows where
the change is made:
The figure does not come from the documents I have from Prime- there was nothing pre-2025. So where does the “deficit of £3,964, referenced in my email dated 28 April, relates to a period prior to both the 2025 financial year and Prime’s management of 50 - 72 Chichester Road” come from?
The only answer I could think of is they are the company’s old debts and on the 2024
statement they appear here.
If that’s
what happened? I’ve seen deficits from
previous years on the accounts before where the surplus has been rolled over
instead of paid to or from the Leaseholders but I can’t see where this number
comes from. For example, the deficit for
2023 is indeed £1049 and this was rolled over but the surplus for 2024 was
according to Prime £8418 so how can there also be a £3964 deficit from earlier
years which exists simultaneously?
Here’s how the system is supposed to work:
As you can
see, over the year the Leaseholder funds raised increase and then are spent and
what is left becomes a surplus or deficit which should go to or from the
Leaseholders accordingly and only in those directions.
Looking at
the two sets of accounts side-by-side Cash in Hand at the Bank is claimed to be
£14841 in both of them so the actual amount of money we have doesn’t appear to
be changed by this after all. So what
has changed? Well, Prime can spend the
Working Capital without our permission.
They cannot spend the Reserve Fund without express permission. So this looks to me like a fiddle to allow
them to spend more money without asking for an explicit sign off.
Also in a
year with no repairs or calls on the Reserve fund with £3750 transferring to
the Reserves and a Surplus being produced you would expect the company’s assets
to go up in 2025. In fact the “Cash in
Hand at the Bank” value (literally the money we have in the bank) seems to go
down from £15894 in 2024 to £14841 in 2025?
A loss of £1053? This should not
be possible? One would think so. So how
is it so? And are these figures actually
right? Spoiler – the answer is no.
2 Cash in Hand and at
the Bank
Because Prime had blamed their predecessor for the deficit I was forced asked to see the Bank Statements and Supporting Documents via the extreme tedium of a Section 21/22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 Request …instead of Prime just handing them over…
My first thought was did some money go missing in the handover between Concept Property Management and Prime Property Management? So I checked both their Bank Statements.
Here’s the last bank statement of Concept above the first bank statement from Prime.
This also matches the Accounts Cash in Hand at the Bank figure for 2024.
So I think the answer is no. There is nothing wrong at the Start of 2025. The end of 2025 is a different matter. The other simplest check one can do on the validity of the accounts is to check the “Cash in Hand and at the Bank” value for the end of the year (31st of December) which appears on every version of every year’s accounts. The Cash in Hand at the Bank figure is not a calculated sum – it is the closing balance. It is arrived at by simply copying the last figure on the 2025 Bank Statement (nearest to 31st of December) onto the Accounts Balance Sheet. And that is £12290 not £14841?
A difference of £2551?
After spending 4.5 months and £870 on Accountants one should get better data transcription than that? I do not believe is it is a casual mistake.
After all, this is possibly the most important number on the Accounts because it represents the real amount of actual cash that is at the Bank that we could possibly spend if an emergency should occur. A number so important that the accountants have to specifically attest that this specific number is true as part of their sign off. Here is what their statement on all accounts for all years says about the veracity of this number and their responsibility to it.
So they have explicitly signed that “all balances are reconciled” with the “bank balance shown in the service charge accounts” but what they have produced is nonsense. Why has the loss of £2550 of assets been concealed? If that’s not false accounting I don’t know what is. It’s something that definitely should have been accounted for that is false.
And it’s not £20, £30 or £100s out. It’s £2550 out which is 17% of the company’s total cash reserves. This cannot be an oversight. I would remind you they claim to have checked all these numbers TWICE before issuing the accounts. Also I told Prime I thought the accounts were wrong because I as the Company Director signed them off but they published them anyway meaning I then had to research all the Leaseholders addresses and contact details via the Land Registry to inform them all personally of this possibly deception.
You say we have to provide proof, but do these people not have to support their statements that they have signed to as the TRUTH at a cost to us of £800 a time…?
3 Refusal to have
an AGM
Of course the traditional forum to debate these matters would be the company AGM but Prime refuse to have one, arguing variously that their Property Manager has no free evenings before 2027 or that senior management would need to be there at a very high hourly rate. This is because Prime know the Leaseholders would challenge them about their calculations. I have challenged Prime multiple times over these numbers and yet they continue to insist they are correct in the teeth of all the evidence. How is that not false accounting?
4 Discrepancies between the 2025
Prime Accounts and the Charge Sheet
Looking at the Bank Statement for 2025…
Prime Property Management had taken ~£6915.
But on the accounts had only declared ~£4679…
This creates a shortfall of ~£2234 (Thankfully not £3,964) when I cross reference their bank statement with their charge sheet. Approximately the £2550 the Cash in Hand at the Bank figure is out by. Coincidence?
It is not
possible to fully reconcile Prime’s payments to themselves on the charge sheet
and the Bank Statement because several payment have been concatenated into one.
Here’s the best I can do:
|
Date |
Payee |
Reference |
£ |
What for guess
from charge sheet? |
|
20-Feb-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT25051BCFMD |
-2794.00 |
Quarterly Fee
£900 + Secretarial £334 + 2025 Accounts £870 + £600 for what + £90 undeclared |
|
17-Apr-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT251072NNZC |
-900.00 |
Quarterly Fee |
|
15-May-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT251355JTRM |
-65.02 |
Bank Fees |
|
18-Sep-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT25261WZGDK |
-900.00 |
Quarterly Fee |
|
30-Oct-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT25303Y66KT |
-30.00 |
Postage and
Stationary |
|
11-Dec-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT25345V9JTR |
-625.00 |
Debt Collection Undeclared |
|
18-Dec-25 |
PRIME CPS |
FT25352GFVKG |
-1601.00 |
Quarterly Fee
£900 and £601 undeclared? |
|
Total |
-6915.02 |
The yellow fees were the ones I could fully reconcile. I think the others are composites. It is plausible that both of us might have forgotten what £600 at the start of 2025 were for but £600 at the end? These also look like suspiciously round numbers.
The ~£2234 in undeclared costs seems to be mainly the result of £625 in undeclared debt collection costs (11/12/25), about £600 of undeclared charges (18/12/2025) [Double counting error?] …and also more oddly the charging of accountancy costs for two separate years simultaneously.
5 The charging of
accountancy costs for two separate years simultaneously.
According to their charging sheet Prime Charged us:
£870 charge for accountancy fees for 2025 takes place on the 10th of January 2025
(Delivered April 2026)
BEFORE
£720 charge for accountancy fees for 2024 takes place on the 20th of February 2025
(Delivered February 2025)
Actually on the Bank Statement they occur simultaneously which is surely impossible if unlike Doctor Who we regard time as a strictly linear phenomenon…?
I thought one can only do the 2024 accounts in 2025 (and the 2025 accounts in 2026) because it is only then that all the invoices, bank statements and the budget exist to calculate them…?
Perhaps they charged early but isn’t 15 months a bit too early when your contract is only 1 year…?
Do you really need a forensic accountant here?
Isn’t this just GCSE maths and a calendar?
How can this be explained other than as a deliberate deception?
After all as we employ them for only a year at a time on one year contracts how can they know in 2025 that I will be employing them in 2026 in order to charge for things outside that financial year?
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