Invoice, Bill or Estimate?

Pitch and Maintenance Fees in Invoice dated 14th December 2022

Margaret and Barry Williamson
January 2022

There are a number of outstanding questions relating to the invoice issued on 15th December for Pitch and Maintenance fees. There may well be simple explanations, but not a single explanation has been given.

We have found the following link informative:

https://www.gov.uk/invoicing-and-taking-payment-from-customers/invoices-what-they-must-include

The Registered Business Address for VAT No 307476790 is High Jervaulx Farm, Jerrvaulx, Ripon North Yorkshire HG4 4PG, an address used by the previous owners of the Brickyard site.
The Registered Company Address for the current owners, Brickyard Leisure Ltd, is Tennyson House Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, England, CB4 0WZ. It is not the address in Amotherby which is given in the invoice.
The Bank Account (sort code 40-47-31 and account number 44886968) is the same as that used to pay last year’s site fee to the previous owners.
Inflation. There are a number of ways in which the increase in pitch fees can be calculated. Last year, the basic site fee was £3,120, this year it is £4,300, an increase of 38%. Taking the two figures after VAT (£3,510 and £5,160), this rises to 47%. Deducting the mysterious £600 from this year’s total reduced the increase to 29%. These figures will also be influenced by the answer to the query about non-domestic rates.
Two Thirds of a Pension. To give a sense of perspective, the site fee is 62% of the basic old age pension of £7,376.
Reasons. Under paragraph 8.2 in our Site Licence Agreement, we are to be given a written explanation of the reason(s) for any increase which is proposed. We have had none.
Amount Credited. In the most recent invoice dated 15 December, £600 was deducted as an ‘amount credited’ at the end of the calculation without further explanation and apparently free of VAT either owed or to be paid. This amount could have been deducted from the Pitch Fee thereby reducing the VAT payment by £120.
Council Tax. The invoice for 2022 listed ‘Holiday Home Site Fee’ and ‘Non-domestic rates’ as two separate items. Are the rates no longer payable, or are they included in the pitch fee or are they still to be paid by each owner?
Maintenance. A brief search on the web produced many examples of pitch fees, all of which include the site’s facilities and maintenance team support, gardening, lawn service, park landscaping etc (see attachment). These things are not a separate and additional cost. They were included in the pitch fee in previous years and Paragraph 8.6 in the Site Licence Agreement states that when maintenance fees were previously included in the pitch fee but have become a separate charge, the pitch fee should be reduced by the cost of that service.
Date of Provision. The usual procedure is for an invoice to be provided after the date on which goods or services were provided. In this way it can be checked against what goods and services were originally agreed and ordered. So this should be a ‘Final Invoice’: the official request for payment for a completed project, service, or product. It should include all the information necessary for customers to understand what they’re paying for and how to pay. For most businesses, this is the “standard invoice.” Only a long project requires an estimate or interim invoice.
Penalties? How can a customer be penalised for late or non-payment of an invoice when the goods are services have yet to be provided, when the customer does not know what is yet to be provided and it seems that there is no basis on which goods ot services can be provided.
Compare and Contrast. We have very secure indoor storage for our 3½ ton, 7 metre (23 ft) motorhome, guarded by two high-security remotely controlled gates, CCTV and a resident owner. With year-round 24/7 open access, this costs £1.15 a day or £420 for the full year. What does the Brickyard offer for ten times as much, other than low security storage with no access for a month each year?