29 January (Part 4) - A stroke of luck
This won‘t be too long a story as I have an elderly lady’s immersion heater to fix but
I think it is too important to suffer significant delay especially after
yesterday’s
pessimism. I hope you will agree.
When Mick Barnbrook and I held
our Fothergill conference
last Tuesday we found that some of the people there had worked with Councillor Fothergill
over several years, some had been friends in happier times.
I was told that during that period Councillor Maxine Fothergill said she was going to do a
very good deal on a bungalow in Barnehurst and was in celebratory mood. Maxine said the bungalow was in the ABC Roads and I did not
have a clue what that meant. Nor did my informer when first told of them.
However it seems it is Bexley Council jargon for Appledore Avenue, Beechcroft
Avenue, Castleton Avenue, Downbank Avenue and Edendale Road in Barnehurst which run parallel
to each other. An informer drove there looking for bungalows and found, wrongly as it happens,
that all the bungalows were in Beechcroft Avenue. That is where the story that
the house I was looking for was in Beechcroft must have came from.
Those in the property business spent quite a lot of money on Land Registry
searches of Beechcroft Avenue and got nowhere. As you read yesterday, I was getting nowhere too but
with a quarter million pound cheque
in dispute, some well heeled people in the housing trade thought
it worth the expensive approach. That is a systematic search of Land Registry
records of all the ABC Roads and hang the expense.
It
should have taken a long time but by an enormous stroke of luck the principal searcher
attacked the problem from the back end of the alphabet, E for Edendale and soon
came across the bungalow pictured here.
The present owner’s name matches a council officer’s about whom there were hints
last year. A knock on some neighbouring doors seeking the name and whereabouts
of the previous owner may well have reaped its rewards but with property professionals on side
there are more sophisticated methods.
These people know their way around the trade websites and are only too ready to spring into action.
Very quickly the whole ownership history since before the second world war flowed into my Inbox
together with the prices paid and when. Whoever said
the old lady’s name was either Enid or Edna
was right, in fact given the middle initial they could be right on both counts.
The only pieces missing from the jigsaw now are the identity of the complainant and why Bexley
regards the transaction as misconduct conferring a financial advantage and
I totally fail to see how the current owner and council employee can be at fault.
Bexley Council must think otherwise.
To look further into the Misconduct verdict some estate agent valuations of the home in question and the
surrounding properties may be required. I don’t know any estate agents but I know a man who does.
I’m not sure how one would go about tracking down the complainant as I can’t see
any obvious clues but the amateur sleuths will be having a field day while I do
battle with an immersion heater.
If more good info shows up you will be the first to know, although I was hoping
that the weekend might provide an opportunity for a rest.