Unhappy with management company

[citizenkain]

Just looking for a bit of advice regards a management company that runs a small estate in Scotland,

their attitude is terrible,

 

 

if you call them you just get put down,

I asked them why we are paying the same roofing company to replace the same roof tiles every year

just to get told they would tell them my concerns, theres no proper feedback from these people at all.

 

It seems they just send the invoices out and get the money and keep calling the same useless contractors up and sending them out regular.

 

What can be done with these people??

[BankFodder]

In terms of jumping ship, I would start studying the existing contract with a view to understanding exactly what it says about cancelling or terminating – or about not renewing. At the same time, I would be looking around for alternatives and I would be talking to other management companies. It is essential that if you decide to part company, that you have somewhere to go to and that everybody understands exactly what the situation is and that you have built up confidence in your new management company.

 

If on the other hand you think that you want to stay with your existing management company then I would be looking carefully at the contract to see what it says about their accountability to you – about the obtaining of multiple quotes and about consulting with you at all times before any work is done. Also, I would think about getting a another roofing company to come along and to assess the work that which has been done for you by your regular roofing company.

 

If you find that an independent roofing company is critical of the work and is able to explain what is wrong with it, I would then think about getting in a proper surveyor to have a look at it and to confirm the negative view of the work in a written report. I would then want to have a meeting with the management company and to challenge them on this. I will also be thinking about doing some careful research to see whether there are any improper connections/conflicts of interest between the management company and the builders that they are regularly employing. This would probably be hard to do – but you never know. Do you know anybody else uses the same management company? Are they using the same roofers? Are there any complaints there? Have you looked at the Internet generally to see if their complaints about this particular roofing company?

 

Of course, I suppose that one of the big stumbling blocks will be to get everybody in your estate on board. It's very difficult to get anything done if not everybody agrees. There is also the difficulty that you need to keep everything confidential until you are ready to make a challenge or to terminate the contract. You might find that if anybody disagrees with you, they might go ahead and inform your existing management company – which wouldn't be fatal, but which might make things a little bit more difficult.

[citizenkain]

Good points,Ive never seen my contract with them or anyone elses,when I moved in here I just got a letter from them telling me they are the management company and I had to send them £300 in advance money for there fees etc,I must ask them for a contract or whatever

[stu007]

Some links for you:

 

Property Factors: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/privateowners/propertyfactors

 

Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/privateowners/propertyfactors/2011Act

 

Legislation: Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011

 

Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011: Code of conduct for Property Factors: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2012/07/6791

 

Homeowner Housing Panel (hohp): https://hohp.scotland.gov.uk/