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Age UK branch appeals to council ombudsman after £500k property bill

Finance | Niki May Young | 23 Nov 2011

Age UK Hertfordshire is preparing to take Watford Borough Council to the local authorities ombudsman in a bid to protect its reputation after receiving a £500,000 dilapidations bill for two properties it occupied.

The charity received two £250,000 bills for council properties in Exchange Road and Harebrakes, Watford, which it occupied since 2006.

Age UK Hertfordshire took over the properties from Watford Old People's Welfare Association, assuming responsibility for its meals-on-wheels and day-centre services when the Association fell into financial difficulty.

Age UK Hertfordshire chief executive Marion Birch told civilsociety.co.uk that her charity decided to step in to save the services for old people in the area, but had not taken over the leases officially. In fact, she said, the lease for Harebreaks had originally been drawn up in the 1960s and expired in 2002, without renewal by the Council.

When Age UK left the Harebrakes property in 2009, the charity was issued with a £250,000 dilapidations bill by the Council. In addition an inspection was undertaken of Exchange Road, which the charity still uses as a day centre and runs many of its services from. Despite the charity holding no formal lease for the property, a further £250,000 bill was issued in order to bring the property up to good repair.

Age UK Hertfordshire, which had been paying a peppercorn rent at the properties, campaigned against the bills and reached an agreement with the Council in February 2011. The charges were wiped, aside from what Birch descibed as a confidential "small settlement figure", and an official lease was signed, maintaining the peppercorn rates, for the Exchange Road property.

Protecting the charity's reputation

But stories about the situation have appeared in local media and now the charity is preparing a dossier of evidence to provide to the local authorities ombudsman in a bid to protect its reputation. 

"I'm hoping that they'll just clear our name and merely state publicly that we are working for the interests of the older people of Watford and we are not wasting taxpayers money, which is what has been represented through the media," said Birch. "Some pretty awful things were said and we want to tell the people of Watford that we are not negligent. We need to protect our reputation."

Birch advised that the charity was hoping the Council would have "expressed regret and issued an apology" but despite the charity writing to its chairman, no response was received.

Watford Borough Council spokesman Mark Jeffrey said that the Council had first heard of the charity's latest action through local press, but said that it was "the charity's prerogative" to go to the ombudsman. "We are confident in the outcome," he said.

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