Can flat owners "self-factor" a factored communal property?

Owain_Moneysaver

A previous building I lived in did this. The hardest part was getting everyone to pay (and chasing this up every time a flat was sold etc).

However once it was running it worked quite well. Everyone paid £25 a month by standing order into the residents association bank account.

A local cleaning company was given a contract to do the close stairs fortnightly, a window cleaning co did the whole block windows I think once a quarter, and a local gardening co cut the grass (with their own equipment) fortnightly during the season. Once a year we'd buy a big box of lightbulbs for the resident who changed the lightbulbs.

The £25 a month over 16 flats covered all this and built up a bit of a fund towards roof repairs etc, so when the close needed a new intercom system the fund paid half and the flats paid the other half at the time.

Quarterly meeting decided what happened. Someone typed up the minutes and posted them out to absent landlords (who left a stack of SAEs for this purpose).

The people running it get no thanks and all the aggro etc, but the building was very well maintained and this was reflected when flats were sold as all the estate agents mentioned the well maintained common parts.

magiccake

Pixie5740 wrote: »

First of all check your title deeds.

The deeds do set out a "property manager" which in this case is the current factor. However the factor can be changed (we've done it in the past).

My question was more along the lines of "can we change the factor to 'ourselves'"?

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

A previous building I lived in did this. The hardest part was getting everyone to pay (and chasing this up every time a flat was sold etc).

That sounds exactly like the kind of thing I had in mind.

The problem with the current factor is not that their own fees are expensive - it's the fact that they call out expensive contractors (without shopping around) to deal with minor maintenance issues which some of us could fix ourselves. Example: £300 for sealing a joint on a pipe.

I suppose I'm looking for a more democratic approach.