We are often approached by the directors of residential block management companies who are dissatisfied with the current Property Manager and wish to change in order to get a better service or reduce their service charge contributions to a more reasonable rate.
The most common reasons why lessees tell us they are not happy with their Property Manager are:
1. Their service charge contributions are too high.
2. Their Property Manager never visits the building.
3. They are charged for services which are not provided.
4. Requests for information are either ignored or take months for a response to arrive.
5. They are charged far too much for simple tasks such as the changing of a lightbulb.
It’s not my job to tell you whether your Property Manager is doing a good job or a bad job as often it’s subjective, but what I can tell you is what Sebright Property Management does that we think is better than other residential block management companies in our industry.
So over the next few blogs, I shall be setting out some of the key points that we do to ensure that the building is run in a cost-effective manner which complies with all of the legal and health and safety requirements.
I shall begin with Staff, staff training, staff workload and retention.
When approached by blocks of flats that are managed by other medium-sized and larger firms, some of the biggest complaints are that the Property Manager either never attends their building, is never available on the telephone, and that they get a new Property Manager every six months.
All of the above issues or interlinked. Property Managers in larger firms are often given a huge number of properties to manage. I’ve heard stories of young Property Managers being given 95 buildings to manage. This is obviously an impossible task, which leads to clients being dissatisfied with the Property Manager and complaining to the residential block management company that they’re not getting the service that they are paying for. This would make any employee miserable and less likely to want to stay in that role. This means that they resign and move on to another company, leaving the client to suffer again from a Property Manager who doesn’t know the building and is under the same pressure.
At Sebright Property Management, we ensure that all of our Property Managers are capable of managing the buildings that are assigned to them. In some instances, this means that the Property Manager only manages 8 properties and in other instances, a more senior Property Manager could manage up to 30 properties. This ensures that the client is getting the best possible service. That the Property Manager can attend a scheduled site visit every month and meet their clients and that any problems are dealt with expeditiously.
At the same time, the Property Manager is given the opportunity to attend the many courses set up by the Institute of Property Management or the Institute of Residential Property Managers so that they can stay on top of the changes and laws and legislation that affect what they do and they’re working environment. This keeps the Property Manager happy and far less likely to want to leave Sebright. The client then keeps their Property Manager for years rather than months and the knowledge gained during the course of our management is retained so that we can address any problems effectively.