THOUSANDS of homeowners may have been overcharged by one of Scotland's largest councils for emergency repairs over the past 15 years, it has emerged.
Edinburgh City Council admitted some residents will have been handed inflated bills because of a system introduced in 1996 whereby homeowners were charged a minimum flat fee for a job, no matter the actual cost of the work.
The admission is the latest blow to the council's Property Conservation Department, which is already facing allegations it has overcharged hundreds of residents and businesses for unnecessary work totalling many millions of pounds.
Aware of the "negative public perceptions of the service" the city council has now slashed the flat fee in half. Previously residents in tenements with more than 20 individual properties had to pay £29.50 each, no matter the cost of the repairs.
Last year there were 2000 minimum charging cases in blocks of at least 20 flats, meaning that, since the policy was introduced in 1996, as many as 600,000 properties may have been subject to the charge.
Although the council claims only a relatively small proportion have been overcharged, one councillor said last night that no-one should have had to pay more than the true cost of repairs. The minimum charge, which was introduced to help fund the running of the 24-hour emergency, or statutory, repairs department and to offset bad debt, will now be reduced to £15 although 15% will still be added to every bill for administrative costs.
It is estimated that reducing the fee will cost the council £30,000 a year.
The minimum charge policy means that if the work to fix any repair totalled, for example £500, home owners in a block of 30 would each still have to pay £29.50. This would leave a final bill of £885, almost double the actual cost of the work. The 15% would be added to that as well.
The council said most of the cases involved drainage problems, and one source said often dozens of flats would be billed for a minor blockage elsewhere in the building that may not even have affected their property.
When it was first introduced in 1996 the charge was £20, but it has risen steadily since.
The news comes after The Herald revealed the council has a "working estimate" of how much people have been overcharged for repairs that were not needed or were overpriced. It stands at £13.5 million over the past five years alone, calculated at 10% of the value of work done. More than 700 people have lodged complaints about inflated bills.
Police and accountants are currently investigating alleged fraud in the department where 18 staff have been suspended and four dismissed.
Labour councillor Ewan Aitken said: "We should be charging people for what the job costs, no more no less. It is the only way to restore faith in the service."
Mark Turley, director of community service, said: "This [the charge] can have the effect of recovering more than the actual cost of the work when a large number of owners are involved. This is obviously a particularly sensitive issue in the current climate, and given current concerns about the service.
"In many cases the minimum charge represents a fair and equitable means of recovering costs for emergency work. However, in a smaller number of cases, usually relating to drainage work, costs can fall to be shared between a significant number of owners.
"This can result in the council appearing to be charging significantly in excess of the cost of the job."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article