Unlawful behaviour by our Council further harms their reputation

We have longed stated that the levels of competency of some Council Officers is woefully inadequate. Once again, without any assistance from The Shepway Vox Team, they freely offer up more evidence without us having to rummage around to provide evidence to prove this.

In Report Number: AuG-22-13, to go before the Audit & Governance Committee on Wed 21 Sept, it states:

Two, from the ten applications tested, resulted in the property being sold without a valid EPC certificate in place, which is not in accordance with current legislation for the sale of houses.

Put simply you need an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to sell a house, by law. But the council sold houses without them. One has to ask how this happened. How so many people who would be involved in the process, the Council’s lawyers, The Housing Team, The Conveyancers and others, all missed this simple requirement to make the sale of the two homes lawful.

Let’s hope that if any of the following properties are sold under the Right to Buy scheme, the Council will ensure they have valid EPCs

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So given the Council have definitely sold two houses with no EPCs; which was unlawful, what happens to the money from these sales, and how does the external Auditor, of the Council’s accounts, Grant Thornton deal with this matter.

Well that’s quite simple. Grant Thornton are required during their audit to look at non-compliance with laws and regulations. One of things they must look at is

Payments without proper exchange control documentation

Let’s hope they do. And let’s hope they mention the payments the Council received money without the proper exchange control documentation being in place in any future audit findings by them.

The Shepway Vox Team

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