Decision Report 201500117

Summary

Mr C owned a property in Edinburgh. Between 2008 and 2010, four statutory notices were issued by the council requiring work to be carried out on the property. The council were asked to take over management of the works. Although the work was completed in February 2012, the council did not issue Mr C with an invoice until March 2014. He considered there to have been an unreasonable delay to the invoice. He also complained that the project had been managed poorly with unnecessary delays. He noted that the responsible department within the council was placed under investigation and considered that this was evidence of poor management practices. In the circumstances, he did not feel it was appropriate for the council to charge their normal 15 percent administration fee.

We found that the invoice was delayed while an independent investigation was carried out into the property conservation service's handling of all statutory notice projects. We considered it reasonable for the council to await the outcome of the investigation rather than issuing an invoice that may later turn out to be inaccurate. We considered that the independent investigation appropriately sought to check the management of each project on its own merits. Whilst there were widely publicised cases of poor management of statutory notice works, this did not affect Mr C's case and we, therefore, had no grounds to recommend that the council's fees were waived.