New Management Company - Owners not paying

Isgregalive

I live in a small development of 36 units (mixture of apartments, Semi-D and Detached) homes and up until 2 years we didn't have any management company in place. The original developers went bankrupt just as the houses were being finished back in 2010 and while the homes were finished the roads and landscaping were not and over the years some of the residents chipped in and cut the grass and done what we could to maintain the estate.

We probably have a higher percentage of investors who don't live in the estate than most other neighborhood and we're having a hard time getting them to pay the fees (less that EU200 pa) - leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab. The current management company has been trying to pursue but their requests are just being ignored.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to pursue the delinquent owners and enforce payment or is this the norm.

I've just returned home to live and can't say I'm overly familiar with the process here yet - I've read through some of the older post on the forum to try to get some information but thought I'd ask directly in case anyone else had similar experience.
TIA....

Samuel T. Cogley

Possibly not feasible in your situation but we dont allow sales to go through until management fees are settled.

gaz wac

parking permits worked for us. If your up to date, you get two permits. If a car doesn't have a permit, its clamped by a 3rd party clamping company. this wont work if you have a private front garden though, but anything on a path or the road, is fair game.

pinkypinky

Letter to all owners along the lines of "new sheriff in town". Explain management agent will be sending out statements with payment options. Offer monthly/quarterly, etc. Give them 1 month to respond and set up payment plan. If anyone does not, engage solicitor and send legal letter immediately. You have to play hard ball immediately or the whole development suffers. If the letter doesn't work, pursue legally and obtain a judgement against them.

The development should be able to block a sale until arrears are paid, however, this is a long game.

Short term options: refuse to provide meter readings, do not deal with small issues.

I know this from 10 years experience as a director - we still have people who haven't paid for more than a decade. Sickens me that enforcement procedures are so poor.

Isgregalive

pinkypinky wrote: »

Letter to all owners along the lines of "new sheriff in town". Explain management agent will be sending out statements with payment options. Offer monthly/quarterly, etc. Give them 1 month to respond and set up payment plan. If anyone does not, engage solicitor and send legal letter immediately. You have to play hard ball immediately or the whole development suffers. If the letter doesn't work, pursue legally and obtain a judgement against them.

The development should be able to block a sale until arrears are paid, however, this is a long game.

Short term options: refuse to provide meter readings, do not deal with small issues.

I know this from 10 years experience as a director - we still have people who haven't paid for more than a decade. Sickens me that enforcement procedures are so poor.

The letters have gone unacknowledged and much like your situation the people who haven't paid are unlikely to do so - it's a little sickening especially seeing as a few folks pull together to keep the place in reasonable shape.
Could you speak to what the cost of engaging a solicitor was for your estate and what if any improvement in delinquent accounts you seen? Drafting the letter is the easiest part, getting them to engage is the hard part.

gaz wac

letters for us were just blanked. When tenants didn't receive their permits cos landlords, didn't pay..it wasn't long before the landlord got in contact to pay as no one would rent their places without a permit! your fees will go paying the solicitors if going down that route

pinkypinky

Parking permits only work where the parking is not allocated. This isn't always the case.

We put all the legal costs back on the person we have to chase. I don't have specific figures to hand.

However, this sort of short notice legal action does work for a lot of people. We're down to about 7 units with a problem (out of 100, where we had more like 30% of a problem 10 years ago).

silver2020

Is this an official OMC (owner managed company) that controls/owns all the open spaces and is responsible for the upkeep of the common areas of the apartments?

If so, I would suggest you get proper advice on the set-up an running of the OMC.

€200 is very low for apartments - and quite low even for houses.

I would reckong it will be likely €350/house and €700 for apartments.

Unless proper procedures are in place, I would not become a director.

It will be in all purchase contracts and possibly there is a company set up. Maybe talk to the solicitor that did your purchase

irlrobins

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Possibly not feasible in your situation but we dont allow sales to go through until management fees are settled.

This is the norm, sale can't proceed until OMC gives their consent, which can be withheld pending settlement of outstanding fees. I would suggest that you apply penalties and interest to overdue fees, so the longer the owners don't pay, the amount increases at a faster rate. This could be more effective as it will eat into any profit they hope to realize at time of selling.

silver2020

I'd also have a good read of the planning permission and see if any deposit/bond was provided to the council. This can then be claimed to finish off the estate.

Usually such bonds are underwritten by banks.