Your managing agent does not answer. Find out where your building stands.
Four quick questions. Then we tell you what to check first, send you the free switching pack, and give you a written figure for your building if you want one. No call, no obligation.
Question 1 of 4
Who are you?
Question 2 of 4
What is the problem with the agent you have now?
Question 3 of 4
How big is the building, and where is it?
Question 4 of 4
Do you know your notice period with the current agent?
You emailed about the roof in March. Somebody acknowledged it. Then they left, and the job went with them. The service charge demand arrived on time, though. It always does.
You have a folder of these. The lift certificate nobody can find. The insurance renewal that went up by a third with no explanation. The AGM that was "in hand" for eleven months. The residents who now ring you, because you are the only person who ever answers.
You have said "we should really change agent" at three board meetings running. Every time, the same thing stops you: nobody on the board knows what the first step is, and everyone is quietly afraid the money goes missing in the gap.
Here is the part the big agents would rather you did not know. Changing agent is six steps. It is done thousands of times a year. The law is entirely on your side. It feels impossible only because nobody has written the steps down for you and handed you the letters.
Where you stand, read back to you. What to check first for your situation, and the published fee for a building your size, on the screen in a minute.
The six steps to change managing agent, in the order they have to happen, so notice is served properly and nothing falls in the gap.
The handover checklist, all forty lines, with the four-week and three-month deadlines the profession's own code expects. This is the list we send an outgoing agent on the day we are appointed.
Three letters, ready to fill in. The board's notice to the outgoing agent, the incoming agent's first letter, and the welcome letter to every resident, including the line about bank details that stops the fraud.
The first ninety days, week by week, so you can hold whoever you appoint to it.
How client money must be held, on one page, so you can check any agent's answer against it.
A written quotation for your building, if you want it. Our fees are printed, so the figure takes two minutes and arrives by email. No call unless you ask for one.
Serving notice the wrong way. By email when the agreement says post. To the branch when it says head office. A day late, so the twelve months roll again. Step one is: find the notice clause and follow it to the letter. The first letter in the pack is written to satisfy it.
Letting the old agent set the pace of the handover. Without a dated list, the records dribble across in six months and the closing accounts never quite arrive. The checklist gives every line a date and makes silence a breach.
Not telling the residents properly. Payments go to the old account, the old agent keeps banking them, and the year starts with an argument. The welcome letter fixes that on day one.
The law is on your side
Your service charge money is held on trust for the leaseholders by law. It is not the agent's money and it never was. When you change agent, the balance and the reconciled accounts must be handed over, and the profession's code puts a timescale on it.
You are entitled to see the fee schedule and any insurance commission. You are entitled to a summary of the costs and to see the receipts. A managing agent must belong to a redress scheme and must hold client money protection.
None of this needs a solicitor on an ordinary switch. It needs a board that knows the steps and puts them in writing.
From Samuel Milne, The Estate & Block Co
I built a managing agent from nothing to ninety-six blocks in three years, and most of those buildings came to us from an agent that had stopped answering. I have done the handover from a bad agent more times than I can count. I know which letters work, which deadlines they ignore, and where the money hides if you let it.
I have also sat in the board meetings where it does not happen. Good people, volunteers, who have said "next year" three years running because nobody would tell them how it works.
So this is the how. The checklist we actually send, the letters we actually use, the plan we actually work to. Our fees are printed on our website, so we have no reason to hide the method. If you read it and appoint someone else, you will still have done it properly, and I will still be glad you left.
Samuel
What happens when you answer the questions
On the screen, straight away: what to check first for your situation, and the published fee for a building your size.
In your inbox, in a minute: the pack, as a PDF link, from info@estateandblock.co.uk. Check your junk folder if it is not there.
If you want a written quotation, one more click. It arrives by email, ready to forward to the board.
Over the next fortnight, a few short emails from a person, each about one useful thing. The last one says it is the last.
You are a director of a residents' management company or a right to manage company in Essex or London
You own a converted house with flats and the agent has gone quiet
Your board keeps saying "next year" because nobody knows the first step
You are a leaseholder who wants the board to act and needs something to hand them
It is not for you if
You want someone to argue with your agent for you. That is a job, and we quote for it separately
You are looking for a way to withhold service charges. The pack will tell you, plainly, not to
Questions people ask before they start
Is it really free?
Yes. No card, no trial, no catch. The firm behind it makes its money managing buildings at fees it prints on its website. Some boards who read the pack appoint them; most just leave a bad agent better prepared. Both are fine by us.
Will you sell my details or bombard me?
No. Your name and email are used to send the pack and to write to you a few times over the following fortnight, and for nothing else. The privacy notice says so in writing, and the last email says it is the last.
Do we have to be a company to use it?
No. If your leases name a management company, that company appoints the agent. If not, the freeholder does, or leaseholders can form a right to manage company. The pack covers both.
We are mid-year. Does that matter?
No. Accounts are drawn to the handover date and the year carries on.
What if the old agent refuses to hand over?
They cannot keep the building's money or its records. The checklist gives every line a date; when a date passes, the pack tells you what to write and to whom, including the agent's redress scheme and professional body.
Our block is tiny. Is it still worth it?
Yes. Five flats above a shop have the same rights as a hundred and thirty-nine on the river, and the same steps. There is no size below which you have to put up with it.
We are an estate of houses, not a block.
The same steps apply. The residents' company gives notice, the records and the money follow, the estate charge carries on. The letters work for an estate with one word changed.
