Outcome of pitch fee meeting 11/1/24

Outcome of today's meeting on pitch fee dispute -

1. Our chair had a Teams call with the applicant's solicitor (Royale was the applicant originally but the administrator has taken over the case).

2. We offered 4.5% as a fair settlement to withdraw the case but the solicitor had been instructed by the applicant not to accept less than 10%. As the offer has to be accepted by all those in dispute, this has been rejected.

3. The case will now proceed to tribunal.

4. The judge has agreed for the Chair to be the lead case. This means we'll deal with everything and whatever the outcome, everyone else will be bound by that decision.

5. We now have until 31st January to prepare our written evidence bundle and send a copy to the solicitor and court. Nothing further for residents to do at this stage.

6. The solicitor then has until 14 February to respond (counter our claims).

7. The judge is set to look at both of our cases and make a decision on or after 26 February.

8. The judge can agree with our case and lower (or scrap) the pitch fee increase. However, if they don't think we have a case they could rule that the original 13.4% is fair (and we will all have 30 days to cough up).

9. Preparing the case will be time consuming. We have hundreds of documents, emails and photgraphs to support our case but we feel it's worth it because like most of you, we're fed up with the deterioration on this site and loss of services (which we pay for) and this is the best mechanism available to get our voices heard.