A lawyer today filed a judicial protest against ARMS Ltd complaining about its excessive bureaucracy that was forcing people to queue for two to three hours. 

Joe Brincat, on his behalf and on behalf of others, filed the protest after he spent two hours waiting at the ARMS office when all he wanted was something basic. 

He protested against the company's "self-imposed" requirement of examining the legal title to properties before entertaining request for people to be registered for water and electricity. 

Dr Brincat said that he had called at ARMS in person on March 20 and spent two hours in a long queue of people who were mostly there to have the utility meters registered on their name. 

He insisted that the company had no right to check whether these people were the property owners, saying there were many properties in Malta which were not registered in the names of the owners but in the name of the person using the utility meter. 

When a property is inherited, heirs are made to jump through hoops to transfer the services which had been registered in the name of the deceased, he said, adding that in view of the excess bureaucracy people are opting to leave the registration unchanged.

Dr Brincat said ARMS Ltd's role was to lease meters to people not places and therefore had no legal right to know who owned the property. 

"Nobody would be stupid enough to try to register the meters in his own name without having anything to do with the property," Dr Brincat said. 

He explained that he went there after receiving a "stratospheric" bill on which the company had received no reading. Despite promises that a meter reader would go, this never materialised. 

In his protest, Dr Brincat demanded that the company amended its procedures and gives him and several other clients a solution to their problems. He also warned of further legal action in default.