Neighbours not paying management fees.

qrx

ClubDead wrote: »

Oh how I wish that was used here

This is what my management company do (here in Ireland), well actually they pay a solicitor to do it. Solicitor notifies the bank as they are the actual owners of the property. Bank then get on the case of the landlord\owner. I don't know what if anything the bank then do about it but I'd imagine they are not very tolerant of it. Also, solicitor fees are added to the bill.

I think this is effective in stopping the "stick it to the man" type owner, but there are still some hard core "property investment gone wrong" landlords, some of which have left the country who seem to get away with it no matter what. I guess no matter what, at the end of the day nothing can be done about non payment. Until the day they try to sell and are landed with a hefty bill including interest and solicitor fees. But I suppose they are waiting for the value to increase to cover these costs as well as to recoup the equity they put in plus expenses.

qrx

LionelNashe wrote: »

I don't understand why there are management companies, in estates that are 100% houses (as opposed to apartments). I grew up in an estate (like most people) and there was no such thing as a management company to run it. If there was some minimal amount of maintenance that was needed, like re-planting a tree that blew over in a strong wind, then that is what the council is for. Just recently some old trees in my parent's estate were removed by the council because they were in danger of dropping their branches on people's heads. This trend the last 15 years or so where new estates are only approved on the basis that the council take no responsibility for the public areas in them is just bollocks.

I'd much rather pay what for me is a very modest fee to keep the estate in good condition. The council can't even cut grass properly.

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PhoenixParker

Parking and bins are your best bet.

Tenants start screaming at landlords when they can't park and then landlords start to care pretty quickly. I would work very hard to find a legal mechanism whereby you can impact on those two things.

The house owners sound like assholes. If it's not already done, separate out all costs and accounts into categories- apartment only, house only, whole estate, parking. Then work towards having charges apportioned as appropriate.

ClubDead

qrx wrote: »

I'd much rather pay what for me is a very modest fee to keep the estate in good condition. The council can't even cut grass properly.

The fee for the houses is very modest (100e per year I believe). It was going towards regular grass cutting and maintenance of their gardens. We also had a janitor come around every day to keep the estate clean from trash. Now that's all stopped and they are the first complain about how the estate is looking run down :rolleyes:

ClubDead

PhoenixParker wrote: »

Parking and bins are your best bet.

Tenants start screaming at landlords when they can't park and then landlords start to care pretty quickly. I would work very hard to find a legal mechanism whereby you can impact on those two things.

The house owners sound like assholes. If it's not already done, separate out all costs and accounts into categories- apartment only, house only, whole estate, parking. Then work towards having charges apportioned as appropriate.

Their was talk of parking restrictions at the last EGM but it didn't go ahead. I'm going to question the MC about this and the other suggestions when I ring them.

SozBbz

ClubDead wrote: »

The fee for the houses is very modest (100e per year I believe). It was going towards regular grass cutting and maintenance of their gardens. We also had a janitor come around every day to keep the estate clean from trash. Now that's all stopped and they are the first complain about how the estate is looking run down :rolleyes:

In my development (mix of houses, apartments, duplexes) we "ringfence" money from the different categories of owners). Basically we have 2 seperate sinking funds and two seperate budgets. One which everyone contributes to and one with is apartments/duplexes only. In our case, everyone uses the bin sheds, so thats out of the overall budget, but we're having having difficulty with some of the balconies (which effects the duplex owners because its their balcony and the apartment owners because the balconies are part of their roof) so that comes our of the apartment/duplex budget only. Likewise, landscaping comes from the overall budget, but say cleaning the gutters on the blocks is from the apartment/duplex budget, as the home owners would just undertake this task themselves.

basically even if the house owners suddenly stopped paying, its budget items which only effect the apartments/duplexes shouldn't be affected disproportionately. Yes the development would suffer overall as landscaping etc would be cut, but the specific contributions for items pertaining to the apartments/duplexes are clearly allocated for those works.

Could you suggest that the funds are split out in a similar way in future? If the problem here is the house owners, and the apartment owners are paying, then things like general grass cutting should be let lapse and the bins prioritized.

PhoenixParker

LionelNashe wrote: »

I don't understand why there are management companies, in estates that are 100% houses (as opposed to apartments). I grew up in an estate (like most people) and there was no such thing as a management company to run it. If there was some minimal amount of maintenance that was needed, like re-planting a tree that blew over in a strong wind, then that is what the council is for. Just recently some old trees in my parent's estate were removed by the council because they were in danger of dropping their branches on people's heads. This trend the last 15 years or so where new estates are only approved on the basis that the council take no responsibility for the public areas in them is just bollocks.

I think this is often a rosy eyed view of the younger generation. My parents live in a 1990s estate. There has always been a grass cutting rota and an informal management committee that collects about €100 a year for some basic maintenance on the central green.

Formal management companies for housing estates might be a new fangled idea but contributing to the general upkeep of the neighbourhood certainly isn't.

ClubDead

SozBbz wrote: »

In my development (mix of houses, apartments, duplexes) we "ringfence" money from the different categories of owners). Basically we have 2 seperate sinking funds and two seperate budgets. One which everyone contributes to and one with is apartments/duplexes only. In our case, everyone uses the bin sheds, so thats out of the overall budget, but we're having having difficulty with some of the balconies (which effects the duplex owners because its their balcony and the apartment owners because the balconies are part of their roof) so that comes our of the apartment/duplex budget only. Likewise, landscaping comes from the overall budget, but say cleaning the gutters on the blocks is from the apartment/duplex budget, as the home owners would just undertake this task themselves.

basically even if the house owners suddenly stopped paying, its budget items which only effect the apartments/duplexes shouldn't be affected disproportionately. Yes the development would suffer overall as landscaping etc would be cut, but the specific contributions for items pertaining to the apartments/duplexes are clearly allocated for those works.

Could you suggest that the funds are split out in a similar way in future? If the problem here is the house owners, and the apartment owners are paying, then things like general grass cutting should be let lapse and the bins prioritized.

That sounds really good. I really think we got the bad end of the $hit stick when it comes to CMs: ( I'll bring this up to with my MC but it would probably require a new contract which the house owners would never sign.

PhoenixParker

ClubDead wrote: »

That sounds really good. I really think we got the bad end of the $hit stick when it comes to CMs: ( I'll bring this up to with my MC but it would probably require a new contract which the house owners would never sign.

It's what I was trying to get at as it's how are development works too. Even if you can't formally split the fees out having the numbers separated will start the process and give you something to argue with down the line.

Another option (once you get the non-paying apartments sorted) would be to get a whole estate quote for the bins. You may be able to entice the home owners back by saving them on bin fees.

SozBbz

PhoenixParker wrote: »

It's what I was trying to get at as it's how are development works too. Even if you can't formally split the fees out having the numbers separated will start the process and give you something to argue with down the line.

Yep to be fair, I think what we do is informal and we just maintain the separate accounts for transparency etc. Im sure if something major happened with the apartments that was so catastrophic that it wiped out their portion of the money, then we'd use the general pot also, but that would be the worst case scenario. For normal day to day expenditure, fairness (and the appearance of fairness) is really important to keep everyone bought into the idea of the MC.

PhoenixParker

SozBbz wrote: »

Yep to be fair, I think what we do is informal and we just maintain the separate accounts for transparency etc. Im sure if something major happened with the apartments that was so catastrophic that it wiped out their portion of the money, then we'd use the general pot also, but that would be the worst case scenario. For normal day to day expenditure, fairness (and the appearance of fairness) is really important to keep everyone bought into the idea of the MC.

In ours it's more formal and was only started last year as the houses are new but the apartments are there for ten years.