A few nice corporate law solicitors images I found:

Sunset over the Welbourne Centre


Image by Alan Stanton

This is Part Seven of an eight-part series about matters involving Cllr Charles Adje.
To view in sequence, please click here. In any case, it’s better to read at least Part Six first..

Back to ? Part Six ?Forward to Part Eight ?

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The previous Part Six was about the Haringey Council meeting on 19 January 2009.

Part Seven is in three sections.

? First, there’s a recap of key paragraphs from my transcript of part of the Council meeting. These cover Cllr Charles Adje’s stated reasons for consulting an “independent solicitor”.
The repetition is just to save you having to click to and fro. So you may want to skip to the next section which has new material.

?A second section sets out the questions I asked Haringey officers after the meeting. It summarizes the answers they gave me.

?The last section gives my comments.

What Cllr Adje told the Council
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On 19 January 2009, Cllr Adje faced questions at the meeting of Haringey Council. This was originally webcast. But the videos of Council meetings are removed after six months. (They can be requested by residents.)

Here again is part of what he said – and the focus of this post.

Cllr Charles Adje : “As a matter of fact and just for the record I do indeed feel that there are occasions when a cabinet member may feel it appropriate to seek independent legal advice. I do not wish to go into detail, and will not be pressed further on the matter. But in this case I had reason to feel that I was not being given adequate and proper advice on this issue. And thus decided, for the sake of my own understanding of the situation, to seek independent advice, as repeated requests for clarification on the matter was not forthcoming despite my escalation of same. That is all I have to say by way of explanation, as the matter has been investigated and decided upon already, Mr Mayor."

"It is always difficult for members to always take officers’ advice as gospel. Especially when it is out of kilter with the normal Council practice, and when it has been applied in the past and not on this particular occasion. Bearing in mind the District Auditor’s comments that members should always satisfy themselves. I therefore make no apologies for seeking to safeguard the Council’s image and interest, both as a local councillor and the cabinet member in this regard."

My questions to Haringey officers
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I asked Haringey officers how many times Cllr Adje had repeated his requests for legal clarification? And whether or not there was "an escalation of same".

I was told that from records available it appears that Cllr Adje made two requests for legal clarification. The first was in a written note to the Head of Corporate Property Services after a meeting on 12 October 2007.

The second request from Cllr Adje was in an email on 13 November 2007 to the Chief Executive and the Director of Corporate Resources. On both 12 October and 13 November the substance of the request was the same – i.e. were the provisions of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 excluded from the "tenancy at will" granted by the Council to the occupiers of the Welbourne Centre?

There appears to be no record of Cllr Adje making a direct approach to Haringey Legal Services for advice on this point. However, his request for clarification was conveyed to Legal Services and the draft report was amended to deal with the points which Councillor Adje was raising, He was sent a copy of that draft report on 16 November 2007. There are no records of subsequent requests from Councillor Adje for advice or clarification on this after that date.

Haringey officers do not know what Cllr Adje may have meant by "escalation of same" – other than that he made the two requests above.

I asked whether Cllr Adje had asked for a second opinion from counsel [i.e. a barrister] with relevant expertise in Landlord and Tenant law. And if so whether or not counsel’s advice was obtained.

Officers replied that:
“There is no indication that Cllr Adje asked for Counsel’s advice to be obtained at any time before he took his own action to seek independent legal advice from outside the Council.”

I asked about Cllr Adje’s reference to the decision to sell the Welbourne Centre on the open market as being ". . . out of kilter with the normal Council practice, and when it has been applied in the past and not on this particular occasion."

Officers gave me a detailed reply, the key paragraph of which is that:

" To achieve best consideration from the disposal of property assets the Council always starts by establishing a proper benchmark valuation at the time of the proposed sale and normally seeks a buyer through a competitive process in order to maximise the actual price achieved. In most cases this is achieved through an open marketing exercise which also has the advantage of being demonstrably transparent.

I asked about cases where the Council chose to sell to a preferred purchaser rather than seek the best consideration on the open market.

The reply from Haringey officers was that:
“In some circumstances it is possible for the Council to obtain best consideration by negotiating with a single purchaser without offering the property to the open market. This is only in cases where the purchaser can be considered to be a ‘special purchaser’; and is therefore in a position to generate a greater value than other potential purchasers in the open market.”

They also told me that surplus Housing land may be sold to Registered Social Landlords (Housing Associations) at below market price, as the aim is to produce homes for Haringey residents. This does not apply to the Welbourne site.

My Comments
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Overall, this is a far different picture than Cllr Adje gave at the Haringey Council meeting on
19 January 2009, when he chose to publicly criticise officers for not giving him “adequate and proper advice."

Did Cllr Adje make "repeated requests for clarification on the matter"? It turns out there was only one repetition; he asked the same question twice. Was there: "escalation of same"? This also seems to mean repeating his question.

So was there a "lack of adequate and proper advice?" Or was it that entirely adequate advice from Haringey officers was not what Cllr Adje wanted to hear?

Let’s give Cllr Adje the benefit of the doubt and assume he really was unclear about the advice he was getting. In that case, why didn’t he ask for an indisputably ‘independent’ second opinion – from ‘Counsel’ – a barrister expert in the law of Landlord and Tenant?

One point – perhaps the only point – on which I agree with Cllr Adje is that councillors should not accept without question what officers tell us. But equally, Cllr Adje knows very well that when there is a contentious legal issue he could – and perhaps should – have asked for Counsel’s opinion to be obtained. It is by no means extraordinary or even unusual.

Cllr Adje is a former Leader of the Council, and until May 2009 was the “cabinet” member whose responsibilities included Finance and Property. His job was to safeguard not just the Council’s interests but those of all the residents of Haringey. It will come as no shock to him that when the Council sells property it wants the “best consideration” – i.e. the highest price. The idea that a councillor in his position thinks it’s “normal Council practice” to sell publicly-owned land and property at below market price is deeply disturbing.

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? In Part Eight: Who was the supposedly "Independent solicitor"
consulted by Cllr Charles Adje?

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