Stephanie Hike and Mark Packwood used to be good friends but the souring of their relationship could cost them and their neighbours hundreds of pounds.

Each claims the other owes more than £3,000 in a dispute which has also involved residents living in two smart apartment blocks in Hove.

Mr Packwood, a president of Brighton and Hove Estate Agents' Association until he was forced to quit, is refusing to hand over £3,310.49 owed to residents of Avenue Court in Palmeira Avenue.

He insists he will only pay up when he is given £3,489.78 owed to him by people living in Knowle House, Walsingham Road, which is more than a mile away.

The limited companies owning each property both dropped Mr Packwood's firm Packwood Property Services (PPS) from managing the buildings last autumn after a series of disputes.

Only two people own flats in both buildings - Mrs Hike, 56, and Dr Peter Sutton.

Mr Packwood, 42, admitted he felt sorry for everyone else in 16-apartment Avenue Court being denied money because of a building they had nothing to do with.

But he insisted that, because Mrs Hike had been his main contact throughout his dealings with both buildings, it was up to her to resolve the row.

She in turn believes her former friend is behaving badly.

The Avenue Court account with Mr Packwood's firm was in credit when it finished, meaning residents were owed some of the fees they had paid.

But PPS had spent more on six-flat Knowle House than it had been paid when told its services were no longer required.

Avenue Court residents had to dip into their pockets to pay new managing agent Atlas Homes last September and are still waiting to be reimbursed by PPS.

Scott Gray, 31, has lived in Avenue Court for four years and chairs the freeholders' association.

He said: "Every time we do something, Mr Packwood comes back with another stalling tactic.

"The latest is about money owed by Knowle House, which is totally unrelated to Avenue Court.

"I know nothing about Knowle House. It's a totally different block of flats.

"Regardless of the one common interest there is - Stephanie Hike - it's wrong to punish all the other freeholders at Avenue Court."

Mrs Hike, a former magistrate, now runs her own letting agency and lives at Avenue Court.

She said: "This may not be a huge amount of money - I could write out a cheque now and it wouldn't harm my business.

"But we've had to run up £2,000 of accountancy fees to sort out a complete mess and it would cost more to pursue it through the county court.

"Mark and I used to be good friends.

"We would meet quite often but now I feel let down."

Mr Packwood said: "We fell out with Stephanie Hike and her crew and they asked us to audit the accounts, which we've done.

"We've got money owed on one property and credit on the other.

"We said, 'Fine, not a problem, just tell me how you're going to deal with the deficit on one and we'll clear the credit on the other'.

"It was a fairly acrimonious split. I'm pretty certain that if I write out a cheque for the credit, I'll never see the other one.

"I would understand if people in one building felt aggrieved.

"It's down to their leader to finalise the issue."

He was confident they could find a way to hand over the money simultaneously, adding: "They want their money, we want ours.

"I can't see why there should be a problem."

Mr Packwood set up PPS in Hove Street in 1991.

He became president of the Brighton and Hove Estate Agents' Association in January last year but was forced to resign five months later after breaching Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors rules.

His offence related to clients' accounts into which landlords' money was paid directly, rather than kept in PPS coffers.