© 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.
This is understandable as RMCs’ directors will at some point have to make difficult decisions regarding the behaviour of their neighbours.
Enforcing covenants against neighbours can prove difficult and does not sit well with most people, who don’t want to be in conflict with those living in their block.
This is where an agent can help. Agents are ‘expert’ on those matters which we hold ourselves out to provide. We take the necessary steps to enforce leases, collect fees and order works all in the name of good management. We undertake those services which the layperson can find tricky, confusing or something they’d would rather not do to avoid conflict with their neighbours.
It is, however, vital to establish how the RMC and the Agent will best work together. We recently found on a new contract that came under our control that leaseholders had abdicated all their responsibilities to the agent, to the point that the agent then controlled their Management Company and was telling them, the client, what services they would receive as well as the quality and cost. The process we are now undertaking with this group of leaseholders is to slowly educate them about the legal requirements of running their block and what their obligations are as directors.
We guide them with decision making and undertake meaningful consultation with them on the issues affecting their building.
Agents can add value to RMCs regardless of the size of a block. Be careful to avoid being overcharged.
Agents may justify the additional charges applied to these types of blocks as ‘due to the cost of adding the building to their system, the added workload of auditing the accounts, and having to spend the same time replying to queries as that from a large block.’ The expert term for this is ‘hot air’ and whilst some costs may vary, this should not drastically alter the management fee.
I spoke recently at the ARMA conference on the importance of ‘Delivering a Quality Service.’ Listening to our customers is the key to providing the right professional advice. As a RMC speaker made clear, as lay people they expect their agent to provide them with clear advice on decision making to run and manage their blocks. These properties are their most important asset and crucially, for most residents, their homes. These assets must be actively managed by RMCs, or RMCs working with a managing agent.
We believe leaseholders and agents have some way to go if contracts between them are to be successful. Agents need to start treating customers with the respect they deserve as ‘the client’, while leaseholders also need to take an active interest in the affairs of their building and communicate their needs to the agent.
TONY HYMERS is NEW BUSINESS MANAGER AT PATHMEADS