Advice needed management company

Mrs_s_g

trying to keep a long story short. We live in a small new build development built by Bellway in 2020. The management company they used for the site has been taken over twice and is now First Port. Bellway have failed to hand over the site to the Shadow Board and First Port are truly terrible. At best they are charging exorbitant fees for non existent services, at worst we think cash has gone missing. We are trying everything we can to push Bellway to hand over so we can give FP the heave ho but they make empty promises and nothing. They won’t talk to us and have sent a legal letter saying they’ve handed it over to FP and have no oversight. Bellway members of staff are on the board of the Management Company. 

Does anyone have any advice. Is it possible to manage ourselves, we are afraid another management company will just get swallowed up by another big company if not FP themselves. It feels as though this should be illegal they are doing whatever they please. 

gm0

Developer exiting via handoff of freehold. And a crap "the one we use" ManCo corporate that they use for all their sites locally is not a new phenomenon.  We bought a flat in the early 90s and were on the same journey.  Developer wanted to complete snagging and leave.  Anything else - not interested.

Getting the "appointed by the developer at the start" ManCo do do anything productive was a fools errand.  They just swapped out the smiley apologetic lady with a thick skin who came to resident AGMs every 18 months.  Having failed to keep any promises that involved actual work - again.

We worked with the group of residents who could be bothered to try to stabilise the budget and start some maintenance plans for exterior wood etc.  But it was like pulling teeth.  They don't care.  The business model is as lean as possible and they expect sites to leave once they find their feet.

The ONLY real way to make progress on this is to get together as leaseholders with a view to either implementing Right To Manage (appoint your own MA and direct them - sticking to the site scope and leases of course).  You choose but you still have to meet the defined obligations of the freeholder and they can check that you are e.g. building insurance.  

Or the full 9 yards - share of freehold.  Same thing but with the company you create buying the freehold. For which if a price is not instantly agreed.  The enfranchisement process lets you buy it at a sensible value and not be held to ransom.  You need to meet the threshold of residents that want to do it.  And ending up with some residents "in" and some residents "out" of the company is unattractive. So ideally you gain consensus.  Managing the service charge cashflow to achieve the purchase price can involve a levy over several years to save up / repay a debt

Then you eject the MA, appoint your own.  And using the democracy of the company articles you created (THIS MATTERS A LOT LATER SO GET IT RIGHT) you can decide on "how cheap now" vs "how pristine now" you wish your site to be.  More or less frequent cleaning and decorating, gardening etc.

Obviously - it is quite a lot of work - cajoling other leaseholders, and the process to get it setup correctly.  The alternative being "put up with it" / wait for someone else to step up