property management company won't do anything

chiefdave

this is the situation we're in, we own our flat and the lease on the building and the communal areas and lease are taken care of by a property management company. they charge us ground rent (which is in the lease) and a management fee (which as far as I can tell is not in the lease). the problem is they won't do anything. The repairs take months if they get done at all, the work carried out (by their own repair guy) is substandard and expensive. we also seem to be charged well over the odds for buildings insurance (which they won't provide any evidence of having tried to get a lower quote). my question is what can we do. whilst i'm tempted to just not pay them as they're not doing their job i'm wary of suddenly being hit by a big bill, taken to court, black mark on my credit file etc. anyone else had a similar experience, what can we do?

Doozergirl

Sack them!

http://www.lease-advice.org.uk/rtmframe.htm

Essentially you sack them and take on the responsibility of managing the building yourselves or you can employ your own managing agent.

It looks really complicated but there are companies that will go through the process for you for as little as £100 a flat, which paid for itself immediately in our case because we were getting charged £2700 for what amounted to one new window!

Oldernotwiser

I'm puzzled by the fact that you say that the management company charge you ground rent. If they're employed by the Freeholder then it may not be possible for you to sack them ,otherwise I'd agree with Doozergirl. Who owns the freehold?

mstar

has anyone here done the above suggestion by Doozergirl?

chiefdave

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I'm puzzled by the fact that you say that the management company charge you ground rent. If they're employed by the Freeholder then it may not be possible for you to sack them ,otherwise I'd agree with Doozergirl. Who owns the freehold?

the freehold is the building right? that's owned by Citywide Investments (which as far as i can tell is one person). Then the flats are all privately owned. the problem with sacking them is that of the 4 flats only 2 are owner occupied, i'd have no idea how to get in touch with the people who own the other flats which would surely be a problem for setting something up ourselves? also isn't there a danger that if someone decides not to pay we've got problems?

Doozergirl

chiefdave wrote: »

the freehold is the building right? that's owned by Citywide Investments (which as far as i can tell is one person). Then the flats are all privately owned. the problem with sacking them is that of the 4 flats only 2 are owner occupied, i'd have no idea how to get in touch with the people who own the other flats which would surely be a problem for setting something up ourselves? also isn't there a danger that if someone decides not to pay we've got problems?

Firstly, it does not matter who owns the freehold. Leaseholders now have the legal right to manage their own property regardless of who owns the freehold.

You only need 66% of flats to agree. However, we did it - it's simple enough to ask the tenants for their landlord or letting agent's details and contact them that way. Everyone in our block was eager because no-one likes being ripped off. Even the landlord had a stroke and his memory was totally shot to pieces so he kept forgetting what was going on but even he paid us the money to do it.

If one person doesn't pay up now, you all pay for the pursuit of them through your service charge. If you are not confident that everyone will pay up then employ your own agents. At least they are beholden to you for their business, not a freeholder who doesn't care because it doesn't cost them a penny.

With your own agent you will still be able to decide what gets done and get your own quotes if needs be. Get quotes yourselves for buildings insurance etc. You don't actually have to take complete control yourselves, but be aware that you will still pay more than those who do it DIY.

With four flats, I'd think you more than capable of doing it yourselves. If you all paid what you pay now in service charges etc into a bank account, you'd be left with change to spend on improvements instead of wasting it on your waste of space agents.

sarah_elton

mstar wrote: »

has anyone here done the above suggestion by Doozergirl?

Not personally, but last year my flat changed from being managed by CPM to being self-managed by a group of residents.

It is a BIG commitment to take on. Luckily we have a group of elderly residents who have the time and are willing to do it.

I was nervous but it's worked out great. My service charge hasn't gone up once in the last two years, but with the money they're saving on CPM's profit, plus some other financial rejigging, they're currently replacing all the communal windows and cladded sections with uPVC to save future repainting costs. They're doing this building by building till 2013, and for the building being done, residents get offered £500 off new windows to try and get everyone over to uPVC. The first building's just been done and it looks lovely. The flats are 80s build so the wooden windows and cladding were starting to look tired plus the sinking fund for external repainting always took a chunk of the service charge.

So, first major initiative by the self management group is looking really good. Only bummer is I replaced my windows myself just before the scheme was announced. But they've said that if I still live here in 2013 I will get the £500 rebate anyway - people who had already done their windows still get it. Of course we're all paying into the fund to do this whole scheme so technically they're just giving us some of our money back but we're not meant to focus on that. :rolleyes: Since the service charge has never gone up I ain't complaining.

Repairs also seem fine - we had a fence come down in the high winds a couple of months ago and that was fixed pretty quickly.

Bluesmississippian

Like Sarah I have been involved (as company secretary) with taking over the management of a block of flats, also from CPM as it happens.

The initial workload is quite high as we found that a lot of data was incorrect. And once we started digging other problems with suppliers and contractors came to light.

Most of the problems we have come from absentee landlords or their tenants. These landlords are often reluctant to pay the service charges, espcially if there is a letting agent involved.

We have a high level of consensus among the resident lessees but even then it only takes one person with a bee in their bonnet to make things difficult for everyone.

After about 18 months things should settle down but my advice would be to appoint a managing agent at least initially. The difference is that you will be in control and although there will be a profit element in the pricing it need not be exhorbitant. The going rate for this is about £250 per flat per year but if they know what they are doing they will save at least part of their fee by getting better deals for cleaning, maintenance, communal utilties and accountancy.

In conclusion you will certainly save money and aggravation in the long term but be prepared for a lot of hassle in the short term.