Buying or Renting a flat with Concierge

bobwilson

Hi everyone :j

Do concierge services actually work? What do they usually do? Do they accept parcels on your behalf, and can they manage collections?

Obviously you pay extra for a flat with a concierge service

Say you are returning something to an online shop and it's due to be collected between 9am - 9pm from your flat. Can you just give the parcel to the concierge man downstairs?

I'm someone who uses online shopping regularly, so I regularly have parcel deliveries and collections.. a concierge service would really save me time.. but I'm only going to consider paying for a flat with it if they generally actually work..

Does anyone have any experience?

sooz

I guess it would depend on the development.

Ask what hours the concierge works, and if they'd take parcels/deliveries, and if so, if there is a size limit. They might take objection to taking your week's worth of frozen food shopping behind their desk

neverdespairgirl

If you're buying, bear in mind that the service charges will be HUGE. It's expensive to have a person sitting around downstairs all day!

In our case, our friendly local dry cleaner takes in any parcels etc which are delivered when we're out.

DizzyDasher

Our last flat had a porter and it was brilliant. Not only was he lovely (in fact we have continued to pop back to say hello occasionally!), but he could take in parcels etc. and he also took the rubbish out, handled any problems with the building (lift, hot water, or whatever) and always cheered me up on my way out to work in the morning. He was also a great help with moving in and out (sorted out protection for the lift, helped the movers figure out where to park and how best to get stuff in and out, etc.), and with letting agents in to do viewings at the end of our tenancy.

It will vary from place to place though. Our guy worked 8.30-4.30 and took lunch 12-1, so if a parcel arrived at that time you were out of luck. I also never asked him to take in shopping for us - I would have felt that was a bit beyond the call of duty!

I believe the service charges were probably pretty high though (it was included in our rent, so I have no idea how much it was). It's definitely worth finding out how much it costs (if you are paying) and what exactly they do. In the area we lived in most of the blocks had a porter, and some of them were lovely like ours, but some of them let's say didn't have such a good reputation, so it is really variable!

bobwilson

DizzyDasher wrote: »

I also never asked him to take in shopping for us - I would have felt that was a bit beyond the call of duty!

When you say shopping, do you mean just food shopping or all online shopping? e.g. parcels, packets etc.

minibbb

I'd avoid a flat with a concierge to be honest, I could imagine the service charge would be HUGE!!!

I live in a small block of flats and find the service charge high enough as it is. If im expecting a parcel I leave a note on my front door asking them to either leave it in the hallway (if its low value) or leave with a neighbour if not. The small inconvinience of doing this is well worth the savings in the service charge of a flat with a full time member of staff present in my opinion.

tanith

My BIL used to do this job in a complex of apartments and he loved it cos all his tenants would tip him hugely if he did something that was outside his set down duties.. but he was very popular with the tenants cos mostly nothing was too much trouble because he knew he was gonna get a tip at the end of the year... so I guess it depends entirely on the person who is doing the job as to how obliging they are and what duties they are expected to do..

bobwilson

minibbb wrote: »

I'd avoid a flat with a concierge to be honest, I could imagine the service charge would be HUGE!!! I live in a small block of flats and find the service charge high enough as it is.

You say that as if the charge is an unknown. Of course you'd know this before choosing the flat

minibbb wrote: »

If im expecting a parcel I leave a note on my front door asking them to either leave it in the hallway (if its low value) or leave with a neighbour if not. The small inconvinience of doing this is well worth the savings in the service charge of a flat with a full time member of staff present in my opinion.

Ah but that depends on how many deliveries and collections you get, how often your neighbours are in, and whether they mind being disturbed every day by the postman

I suspect you don't shop online regularly, since it's not really reasonable to expect the neighbour to accept parcels and collections almost every day.

sooz

If buying, you'd know this year's service charges, and the last 3 years.

It doesn't guarantee future years charges though. They will increase, year on year. Leasehold flats generally have high service charges for management, maintenance, insurance, sinking funds, etc, add on a concierge and you'll almost certainly have a lift or two. These need regular maintenance and replacement. In a friend's flat, the block sinking fund for new lifts had £100 000 in it, & they still needed more money from the residents.

If you just need the concierge for parcel acceptance have you considered either a hippo box attached to the outside of a flat or house, or looking at alternative postal addresses. A local self store company to me offers this service, for much less per year than paying service charges for even a flat in a rather basic block or conversion.

Or find a wife to stay at home for you

jonny_power

our concierge is good. he arranges the cleaning (which is very regular), organises the servicing of the buildings, car-park licences, liaises with the business which share the plot of land, accepts deliveries and basically is very useful. We live in quite a large development, in smaller ones they probably aren't quite as important, but they often get run down. Our concierge takes real pride in his job, basically.