Due to oversights in paperwork last year and a mix up between the council and our landlord we have been held responsible for two charges for business rates. Thankfully we are eligible for business relief rates at a much reduced cost, however the council were under the impression that we were renting four different properties and thus charged us the full cost of these and the charges for the missing form from last year.
Luckily, Ellan has spent the last four months contesting this and has managed to prove that we do not rent properties on Edge st or the third floor of Wellington House and is in the process of appealing the matter of a unit on the fourth floor.
We have now paid the charge of £731.50 for our mistake and subsequent bailiff fees. We, unfortunately, have also paid £911 due to our landlord telling the council that we occupied unit 39. This was done in error and Ellan and Grayson are working with the council to recover this amount.
Ben Dooks stepped in and lent the necessary money to the space to pay the charges, we will make arrangements to pay this back to Ben in manageable instalments.
Throughout this incident several flaws in our system have been highlighted and need to be discussed and rectified. Members have brought up the idea of having a Members Meeting or an Emergency General Meeting to bring everyone up to date and answer any questions that may have arisen through this.
This has been a difficult time for the space made more so by a variety of circumstances, some out of our control but some, admittedly, within it. We will, as a community work through this and resolve any issues that can be reasonably dealt with.
Reading the above it looks like we might not get the 731.50 back so I’ll throw in 200 quid to help towards that if it’s needed.
Many Thanks
Richard
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Thanks Grayson for the update, I’m glad this has been resolved, thank you also Ben for your generosity in getting the space out of danger, and for Ellan spending so much time and energy on the phone to the council. Heroes.
£731.50 is a lot of money for the space to have to pay, once the (figurative) dust has settled I agree some form of structured meeting to go over what happened would be useful purely so we can get some learnings.