Managing Agents appointed by developers !

As previously advised the ideas behind these blogs often come from conversations and other information received from residents. 

Now here is a shocking example of how managing agents who are appointed by the developer seriously overcharge residents. 

I won’t mention the name of the existing agent or the development but needless to say I am in the process of helping them take control of their Management Company and remove the current agent.

A bit of background on the development this limited Management Company was set up to deal with the garden areas, there are neighbouring development each with their own limited Management Companies who are also members and contribute to this fund, a total of 161 residents.

This year’s estimated costs are:

 

You will see instantly the current agent is charging over £8700 in management fees, £1260 to be members of the board and £754 to act as Company Secretary a total of £10714 earned just from this development alone. Don’t forget they are also earning similar fess for managing the neighbouring developments that belong to this Management Company.

As you can see simply by having a fair, published pricing structure and including items within our management remit that other agents don’t we can reduce the total service charge budget by over £9000 and that’s without reviewing the other expenses.

A word of warning if you are living in a similiar development before you let any other managing agent review your budget make sure you are aware of their fee structure. It would have been all to easy for me just to have reduced the current fees by a few thousand pounds but then the residents would still be paying more than they should have done.

We were also provided with details of one of the actual Management Companies that also pay into this fund and unsurprisingly we were able to reduce their total service charge budget by over £10,500 a year without further reviews of costs.

You may think that something’s amiss and perhaps our fees are too low, as we always say they are not it’s just that for too long now residents have had to put up with paying unjustifiable fees in return for a less comprehensive and transparent service!

If you would like a comparative quote for your development call me today on:

 (01206) 561674