Dear Flat Owner

Ashworth Mansions AGM – 17 June 2013, 7pm

I do hope that you will be able to join us at the forthcoming AGM to be held at the Paddington Sports Club, our normal venue.

The AGM is held primarily to discuss the company and service charge accounts. These are attached with this letter and I’ve enclosed a short explanation that gives some context to the numbers. We will also be voting on the appointment of Joanna Dineraki as a new director of the Company. She is an architect and longstanding resident of block two.

There are three other matters that we will need to talk about at the AGM.

Firstly, I am very sorry to let you know that Daron Tyas has been forced to leave our employment due to ill health. Daron has served our community well over the past few years and we are sad to see him go. We are grateful for all the hard work that Daron has put in over the years and we know how disappointed he is that he could not achieve full fitness and return to work as normal. We wish Daron well and hopes he achieves a full recovery in due course

We are taking a collection for Daron and if you would like to contribute please make a transfer to the Ashworth Mansions account 20-69-17  40126950 with reference “Daron”.  All contributions will be anonymous.

At this stage, we have to consider whether to continue with a resident porter. We have discussed this before and, at the time, the great majority of flat owners were in favour of continuing this arrangement. However, times can change and I have been asked to put the matter once more to the AGM.  In brief, we can save money by moving to a day porter, probably around £10K-£15K, but a resident porter will give the flat owners a better service. If you can’t be at the AGM please let me know your view.

Secondly, we are about to commence phase three of the four-stage refurbishment of the estate. Our policy is to finish each phase before beginning the next and also to only start work for which we have sufficient funds to pay for.  This is why we had delayed phase three due to uncertainty around whether we would get reimbursed for our insurance claim for the cracking in blocks 6/7 (we did) and whether we could afford also to undertake some priority repairs to the link bridges and electrical inlets (we can).

Phase three is the refurbishment of the rear of the Elgin Avenue blocks as well as the Ashworth Road elevation. We have asked SHW, our surveyors, to come to the AGM to explain what will be done and answer your questions.

At this stage, we would hope to complete the fourth and final phase (rear of Grantully Road blocks) in 2014. You should budget for the fourth and final special service charge contribution to arrive in September of around £250K. You will remember that we had originally scheduled this for September 2013 but postponed it as the building work proceeding more slowly than anticipated.

Finally, I am delighted to report that our application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to remove our obligation to supply communal heating and hot water to 53 flats was successful. Our current expectation is to turn off the heating for the last time in May 2014 although the hot water will need to run for longer. Flat owners will be able to install their own systems either this summer (we will drain down the heating) or in 2014.

We owe thanks to Michael Elliot and Devika Malik who have seen the project through to the positive result from the LVT. We now need to discuss how best to manage the change over.

I look forward to seeing you on the 17th of June. If you’ve any questions in the meantime, please get in touch.

Yours sincerely

Geoffrey Barraclough

Chair, Ashworth Mansions Ltd

editor@ashworthmansions.com