The Late Great Bill Alcock

Bill was a founding member of SELCHA. He was already in his eighties when he joined.

Bill worked as an insurance agent for twenty years earning his living from commissions for the sale of insurance. He was indignant at the activities of Chase Longman Associates et al and fought like a lion against what he knew to be theft.

Bill fully understood that the Chase Longman Property Insurance Account which demanded a sum of £1,021.42 when the premium was in fact £387.26p was illegal even if four Treasury ministers and a host of top civil servants did not.

The money demanded is for: 'All premiums, Insurance Premium Tax, Commissions and administration/service charges and disbursements'.

Administration and service charges and disbursements are liable to VAT which has to be declared to be legal. It is not declared by Chase Longman in its Property Insurance Account, so the Property Insurance Account cannot be legal.

Bill was the first person that SELCHA is aware of who formally requested the Local Housing Authority in this case Hastings Borough Council to prosecute a landlord under Section 30A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 for refusing to make available the actual insurance policy for examination and photocopying. Bill supplied proof that the landlord had misrepresented premiums to leaseholders on three different occasions by up to 500%.

A barrister was appointed by the Council to investigate. But the council intervened and wrote to Bill to inform him that he was infringing the human rights of the landlord and there would be no prosecution. The barrister resigned. The Council backed the illegal Property Insurance Account as the only document the landlord had to produce.

It is a hugely interesting fact that when Margaret Thatcher introduced Right to Purchase, it was to make those who purchased with huge discounts liable for the maintenance of the premises in which they had purchased flats. In fact Local Councils had become freeholders which begs the question, do councils use insurance brokers in the way that many other freeholders do in purchasing building insurance which has to be paid for by the leaseholders who have bought under Right to Purchase? Hastings Borough Council did at the time of the letter to Bill Alcock.

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