Q. Are all managing agents the same?

A. Whilst all managing agents have the same overall responsibilities, by creating a community led Residents Management Company (RMC) we would decide what is needed for our properties and employ a managing agent to work for us. Services charges, insurance costs and concierge fees would be in our control, be agreed and voted on by the community.

Q. Have we changed Managing agents before?

A. No we havent, First Port have always been our Managing agent and the only thing that has changed over the years is that they have changed their name from Peveral to Perveral OM and finally to First port.

Q. Why havent we changed the Managing agent?

A. First Port are on our leases as a third party and as such they are not able to be removed unless they make some serious mistakes. There are two other ways to remove a managing agent, the first is for this community to go for Right To Manage (RTM) the second is to set up our own Residents Management Company (RMC) which would then allow us to trigger a clause in our leases that would enable us to choose a new managing agent that would operate with our oversight.

Q. How do we choose a new managing agent?

A. Much like choosing any other type of service provider, we would research suitable companies and look at previous customer reviews (trust pilot etc), the price of the service and other factors and form a decision on who we would prefer, assuming we are happy with the service provided we would renew that contract on a year on year basis.

Q. How can we reduce our service charges?

A. By having more control over what services are chosen we could reduce most of the costs that are currently levied against us. for example:

• Insurance
• concierge costs
• contract fees
• amount paid into the sinking fund

As an independant management company we would have a say in these yearly service charges being reduced considerably.