Over the past two years, George F. White has successfully started a new area of our business and now has five blocks under management, with a total of over 75 properties within those blocks. These comprise some small apartment blocks with shared communal areas, to a more complicated development of over 40 properties which are a mixture of houses and apartments, leasehold and freehold.
All of these developments employed our services because they were having significant issues with their existing block management agent. The most common complaint was lack of communication, and no clarity as to how communal funds were being spent, with repairs being outstanding for long periods of time.
A prime example of this is a development where an archway covering an access road had loose boards following poor weather. This was clearly dangerous to anyone walking or driving underneath. The previous agent had not moved the matter forward in over six months, having provided the leaseholders with extremely expensive quotes, but not proceeding with any work. George F. White took over the management of the development, and in less than a month, we obtained a quote at less than ½ the price of the previous agent and had the works completed. We have also saved the leaseholders over £2,000 a year on their block insurance policy as compared to the previous agent. A leaseholder at this development told us “you have made more progress in the last few months than there has been in the last 20 years”.
A block management agent is employed to look after the interests of the leaseholders in the development, and to ensure the building is compliant and well looked after. There is a balance to be found between keeping costs as low as possible for leaseholders, and ensuring that the development is well maintained.
We are looking to keep expanding this area of our business, and are ideally looking for smaller developments (generally 50 or less units) where we can develop a working relationship with the leaseholders and provide clear and concise information to them, save money wherever possible (which we have been able to do on all the blocks we currently manage) and deal with issues and repairs in a timely manner.
If you are a leaseholder in a block and are unhappy with your current agent, or a freeholder looking for a more personal service, then please call Donna Cheney on 07876 831 202 for an informal chat about how we may be able to help.
