© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
7.18am: Find an overnight email that a property has had a flood. Why they don’t ring the Emergency number escapes me. They usually say they don’t want to bother anybody. I yearn to tell them the emergency number isn’t only for Tsunamis.
8.43am: I’ve volunteered to train a group of property managers for their IRPM exams. Hard work for them but there are incentives for passing.
9.27am: Relieve those manning the phones. Incoming calls “hunt” round the office until someone is found who can answer. Receive a message that one of my porters has called in sick. I immediately arrange a replacement porter who can be on-site within the hour.
10.17am: Check paperwork for a meeting I have with a Board of Directors tonight. This week is a particularly bad week for evening meetings. Normally I only have one evening meeting a week, but this week I have three. I have 800+ units and work with 11 Boards. Also deal with specific Directors on key issues. It’s a juggling act.
11.29am: Arrange for my assistant to send out Section 20 notices for a major external redecoration project at one of my blocks. New Boards sometimes seem to feel we made the laws just to irritate them. Explain very gently. Our in-house surveyors are an enormous help in speeding up the processes.
11.31am: Rush to meeting of Board full of retired owners of big companies. Usually, the bigger they are, the nicer they are; sympathetic to the occasional mistake that happens in the best organised families.
2.19pm: Brief assistant on estimates and job orders. Great system. Everything is followed up by our maintenance department right to conclusion. Nothing like first class monitoring of our approved contractors.
2.41pm: Flake out on couch in kitchen rest area for 10 minutes. Seem to have missed lunch. Am I dieting?
2.54pm: New block in real mess; arrears, no money for major works and problems with previous manager getting all information across. It’s a struggle but we are managing to finally get the last bits of information from them. Have a meeting with credit control. We’ve received authorisation to commence court action against two of the leaseholders who haven’t paid service charges in over 12 months.
3.17pm: Prepare statements and collate information required by our legal team for the new court cases.
4.20pm: Check emails and phone messages. One “thank you” and called “a miracle worker”. A tenant had to be talked out of flouting parking regulations. Appealed to his better nature. Found he had one; long shot but always try. Put email in “Nice” file. Read them when I’m feeling low.
4.45pm: Meeting with director of property management. Working with developers before new flats come onto the market. This morning, we are revising the proposed leases. We share a passion for property.
5.15pm: Finish first new budget for block we took over a year ago. Nine different cost centres and an overall estate charge; new accounts system can import the info I need into the format I want. Silently bless accounts team.
5.57pm: Furious concentration on dealing with urgent items of correspondence.
6.11pm: Pizza with a few other managers who also have evening meetings. Diet?
6.47pm: Off to my meeting. Not every day is manic, not every day is easy, but then that’s why we love the business.
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