The bill came due on Friday. The payment did not.

The Municipal Revenue Office confirmed Saturday morning that Gerald Ashcroft’s property company has not made any payment toward the 2,434,600 florins in outstanding vacant building levy assessed on 21 February. The demand covered unpaid levies on multiple Docklands properties for the period January 2024 to February 2026, and carried a fourteen-day compliance deadline that expired at midnight on Friday, 6 March.

What the Revenue Office received instead of payment was a formal dispute.

Edmond Crayle, of Crayle, Whitford & Associates, filed documents on behalf of Ashcroft Property Group on Wednesday challenging the classification of three properties as “vacant” under the Municipal Revenue Code. The dispute argues that the properties in question — two on Chandler’s Row and one on lower Harbourfront Parade — were in active renovation during portions of the assessment period and should be reclassified accordingly.

The argument, if accepted, would reduce the outstanding levy by an estimated 380,000 to 440,000 florins. It would not address the remaining two million.

The Revenue Office Responds

A spokesman for the Municipal Revenue Office said Saturday that the dispute had been received and was “under review by the assessments division.”

“The office has a statutory process for handling classification disputes,” the spokesman said. “That process will be followed. In the meantime, the balance of the levy that is not subject to dispute remains outstanding and due.”

Under the Municipal Revenue Code, the office has three options when a demand goes unpaid: grant an extension of up to sixty days (with written justification), impose late penalties of one and a half per cent per month on the unpaid balance, or refer the matter for enforcement proceedings — a step that can ultimately lead to the seizure and sale of assets.

Revenue Office sources indicated that a decision on penalties is expected early next week. The timing is notable: the office operates under the authority of the Municipal Treasury, and the council’s attention on Monday will be directed almost entirely toward the copper debate. A penalty decision announced the same day would compete for public attention in ways that may or may not be coincidental.

The Wider Investigation

The tax dispute, while significant in its own right, sits within a broader and deepening investigation into Ashcroft Property Group’s operations in the Docklands.

The comprehensive safety audit ordered on 19 February has now assessed sixty of seventy-two vacant commercial properties in the waterfront district. Of those sixty, twelve have been flagged for irregularities — including two with falsified fire safety certificates, five with lapsed certifications, two with no documentation whatsoever, and two with evidence of unauthorised habitation.

The Constabulary’s parallel investigation into the Greystone Wharf fire and the certificate forgery scheme continues. Arthur Selby, the bookkeeper who served as sole director of Southgate Safety Consultants — the ghost compliance firm linked to the forged certificates — attended a three-hour voluntary interview with investigators on Tuesday. He was accompanied by solicitor Harold Pembridge of Pembridge & Cole, Thornhill, a firm entirely separate from those representing either Drury or Ashcroft.

The key revelation from Tuesday’s interview, confirmed by sources familiar with the investigation, is that Selby personally handled the Ashcroft Property Group account during his eleven years at Whitaker & Sons, the Docklands shipping supply firm that closed in 2022. That connection — between the man who registered the ghost compliance firm and the company whose properties bear forged certificates — has become a central line of inquiry.

Vincent Drury’s solicitor, Elise Braddock of Doncaster & Braddock, has begun referring in correspondence to “third parties” whose involvement in the certificate scheme has not yet been publicly detailed. The phrase is new. Its introduction has not gone unnoticed by investigators.

Selby has not been charged.

The remaining twelve properties in the audit are expected to be assessed by the end of next week, with a preliminary report to council by mid-March.