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Advice requested on freehold company building management
Mackers12
Posts: 85 Forumite
Hi good people of MSE!
Hoping for a bit of general advice (or what pitfalls to avoid) in relation to moving forward with a building / property manager (in London).
The context:
- I'm a leaseholder, and have a 1/8th share in our freehold company - set up to manage 8 flats, split across two adjoining buildings.
- All 8 leaseholders pay the same service charge, and each have 1/8th ownership of the freehold company.
- We previously paid a property manager to manage the freehold company obligations and any building work. This included collecting the service charge, meeting the legal obligations as required by Companies House, sorting out and renewing block building insurance and sorting our general maintenance and repair stuff.
- The service charge is £1k per year (so total of £8k per year for the 'block' of 8 flats).
Our property manager has announced his resignation, and we are currently considering our options for replacing him. Does anyone in a similar situation have any advice or recommendations for what makes a good property management agent? or companies to avoid, red flags to watch out for etc? Or even if people know of any good advice online that people could signpost to? We've heard some not great experiences with some property management outfits - so keen to do our research and make sure of the experience of people more familiar than us!
Any guidance you can offer would be much appreciated. And thanks very much in advance!
To note - we did explore the option of 'going it ourselves', but decided not to considering our lack of familiarity in this area.
Hoping for a bit of general advice (or what pitfalls to avoid) in relation to moving forward with a building / property manager (in London).
The context:
- I'm a leaseholder, and have a 1/8th share in our freehold company - set up to manage 8 flats, split across two adjoining buildings.
- All 8 leaseholders pay the same service charge, and each have 1/8th ownership of the freehold company.
- We previously paid a property manager to manage the freehold company obligations and any building work. This included collecting the service charge, meeting the legal obligations as required by Companies House, sorting out and renewing block building insurance and sorting our general maintenance and repair stuff.
- The service charge is £1k per year (so total of £8k per year for the 'block' of 8 flats).
Our property manager has announced his resignation, and we are currently considering our options for replacing him. Does anyone in a similar situation have any advice or recommendations for what makes a good property management agent? or companies to avoid, red flags to watch out for etc? Or even if people know of any good advice online that people could signpost to? We've heard some not great experiences with some property management outfits - so keen to do our research and make sure of the experience of people more familiar than us!
Any guidance you can offer would be much appreciated. And thanks very much in advance!
To note - we did explore the option of 'going it ourselves', but decided not to considering our lack of familiarity in this area.
0
Comments
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Which part of London are you in?
We have a good Management Agent at the moment - they operate in South London and Kent mostly, though. From personal experience I would not go for one of the larger companies - local is good as they will likely use local tradesmen and the property manager, themselves, should live round and about so useful for visits and meetings.
I have to say that you will probably get good and bad comments on most companies. I tend to find that it can depend on the calibre of the individual property manager, too
ETA
When we changed MA last year we interviewed three companies. It may sound a hassle but the comparisons between them helped with the decision making0 -
Thanks NeilCr that's helpful!
We are based in West London (Ealing / Acton area) and have found some local ones that, as you say, have a mix of good and bad reviews! But sounds like this might still be a better option that one of the bigger ones...0
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