Property management

What managing agents actually need

1. Compliance evidenced, not assumed. Being able to produce the current certificate for any property in the portfolio within minutes, because that is what happens when a landlord, an insurer or a purchaser asks.
2. Work that happens without chasing. A schedule that is held by the contractor and executed, rather than a list the agent has to manage.
3. Occupiers dealt with directly. Access arranged, appointments confirmed, and the agent informed rather than involved.
4. Predictability. Knowing what the maintenance programme will cost across a year, so it can be budgeted and recharged properly.
5. Honest reporting. Being told what was found, including the inconvenient findings, in writing.
6. One point of contact who knows the portfolio rather than starting from scratch each time.

Technical competence is a given – if a contractor cannot do the work, nothing else matters. What separates one from another in portfolio work is almost entirely administrative.

The portfolio compliance register

The first and most valuable piece of work on any portfolio is establishing what is actually there and what is actually due.

That last row causes more disputes than anything else. In a commercial lease, responsibility for plant, for the installation and for the appliances can sit in different places, and ‘we have always done it’ is not a basis for allocating cost. Establishing it from the lease at the outset avoids arguments later.

How we work with portfolios

• One renewal cycle where possible, so obligations cluster and visits can be batched geographically.
• We hold the schedule and initiate the booking. You should not be reminding us.
• Direct occupier contact, with your agreement, for access.
• Certificates sent to whoever files them, in a consistent format and naming convention, on the day where possible.
• Access attempts documented, which is what evidences reasonable steps where an occupier will not let us in.
• Defects reported with a priority, so you can distinguish what needs a decision now from what goes in next year’s budget.
• An annual review, because portfolios change and a schedule that is not updated becomes wrong.

Communal and shared services

The area that causes the most difficulty in managed buildings, because responsibility is least clear.

• Communal water systems – risers, tanks, boosted supplies. Water hygiene obligations apply to these and they sit with whoever controls them, which is normally the landlord or the agent acting for them. Communal systems in partially occupied buildings are a genuine risk.
• Shared plant serving multiple demises, where maintenance cost is recharged through service charge and therefore has to be defensible.
• Shared drainage, where a blockage caused by one occupier affects others.
• Communal heating, which brings its own metering and recharging questions.
• Roof plant, which is frequently forgotten because nobody goes up there. Roof-mounted condensers with F-Gas obligations are a common oversight.

Service charge is the practical driver here. Anything recharged has to be evidenced, so the maintenance records are not just a compliance matter – they are what makes the recharge defensible if a tenant queries it.

Taking over from another contractor

A handover is a genuine risk point and it is worth doing properly.

1. Get the recordsHistoric certificates, service records, F-Gas logbooks and asset information from the outgoing contractor. This is your information, not theirs, and it is worth asking for it formally before the relationship ends.
2. Survey independentlyDo not rely on the inherited register. Survey the portfolio and record what is actually there.
3. Identify gaps immediatelyExpired certificates, obligations never met, plant never recorded. Better to find these in week one than in month six.
4. Prioritise the catch-upAnything statutory and overdue first, then everything else in a planned sequence.
5. Set the scheduleAligned cycles, geographic batching, and a calendar that somebody owns.

The single most important item in that list is getting the F-Gas logbooks. They are the operator’s records, the obligation to hold them is the operator’s, and a contractor who has your only copy is a compliance risk regardless of how good they are.