our ethos
SLC’s whole ethos is to assist and help with the management and community aspects of an apartment block taking our role as an extension of that of our clients, the managing agent, the freeholder and individual resident management company.
We really do understand the need for quick and efficient payments to make sure on-site management is made easier for residents and property managers so that people can enjoy their home environment and not worry about when things will be done.
An RMC’s cashflow is critical to the management of any apartment block and we appreciate that. There are rarely any legitimate grounds for non payment of service charges within a block that is managed the right way.
It has been the case for some time that resident directors and managing agents have engaged in discussions at late and long running AGMs about why it is that the arrears of service charges and ground rents are as high as they are. Questions are also raised as to why an RMC’s year-end accounts has an entry for legal costs incurred during the financial year.
In the vast majority of cases, there should not be any costs payable by the RMC if the legal costs relate to the recovery of service charges and ground rents. When payment of service charges are not paid in accordance with the lease, modern day leases allow for solicitors’ costs for this breach to be paid for by the late paying leaseholder.
That’s why we do not ask our clients for any up-front charges and that’s why we simply don’t need to bill our clients for our charges.
We don’t want to impact on our clients’ cashflow as any monies are best used to manage our clients’ properties and to pay contractors on time. We are very confident that we will not need to charge our clients any of our costs and we see this as a way of ensuring that the RMC year-end accounts are free of a solicitors’ costs relating to late payment of service charges and ground rents. If an RMC is asked to pay any of our costs this will be only in the most exceptional of circumstances and with the agreement of our client.
We believe that taking advantage of SLC’s highly commercial approach and community based ethos towards its partnership property management role can make the difference between an apartment block that is maintained and managed to a high standard and one that is starting to show the cracks.
We really want to make property management easier and block-living enjoyable … we hope the SLC team are helping to do just that.
Neil Shearing
Principal Solicitor
