Residential management is the core of the practice. It is judged by what happens at eight o’clock on a Sunday evening when a tenant has water coming through a ceiling.
What management covers
We act as the point of contact for the tenant and the point of accountability for you. In practice that means:
- Rent collection and arrears. Rent demanded, collected, reconciled and remitted. Arrears are pursued from the first missed payment.
- Statutory compliance. Gas safety, electrical installation condition reports, energy performance certificates, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, deposit protection and the prescribed information that goes with it.
- Maintenance and repairs. Reported through a single route, triaged, quoted and instructed. We tell tenants what is theirs to put right, and we tell you what is yours before any money is spent.
- Tenancy administration. Set-up, renewals, amendments, notices, and the inventory and check-out process at each end of a tenancy.
- Property visits. Periodic inspections with a written record, and additional visits at your request.
Compliance
A residential landlord’s obligations have grown steadily and the penalties for missing them have grown with them. We keep certificates current and diarised, and we tell you what is coming before it lapses. A property that cannot be re-let because a certificate expired is a management failure.
Maintenance, handled once
All maintenance is reported to a single address and worked from there, so nothing depends on someone remembering a telephone call. Tenants are given standing guidance on what to report and how, what counts as an emergency, and which routine items are theirs to deal with.
That last point matters more than it sounds. A significant share of call-outs on a typical residential portfolio are for blown bulbs, tripped consumer units and blocked wastes, all of which are tenant responsibilities. Setting that expectation in writing at the start of a tenancy takes cost out of the portfolio.
Fees
A flat 5% management fee, plus VAT. Tenancy set-up or renewal is £50, referencing £25 per tenant or guarantor. Every other charge that can arise is set out on the fees page, including the third-party costs a landlord should expect to meet.