Why is management so important when creating communities?

We rarely stop and think about the impact that we as property managers have on the environment and on the communities who live in the schemes we manage. But if we take some time to think about what our developments would look like with just a year without management. Grounds would be completely overgrown, lifts and other services would have been switched off and/or vandalised. Payments of charges would all but cease and the appearance of just about every aspect of the schemes would devalue the asset considerably. Behaviours of occupants would change significantly too. It quickly becomes obvious that far from being the irritant that managing agents are sometimes seen as, we are in fact essential to the feel and the quality of the built environment and this in turn has an effect on the well being of the communities that live there.

Terms such as 'placemaking' are often attributed to design and build inputs at the outset and this is an important element. But it must also includes how managing agents keep their schemes looking good and feeling safe and inclusive, and how they bring neighbours together with a common purpose.

Increasingly the mixture of tenure types challenges how managing agents interact and deliver services to a wide range of the community, some of whom will have very different needs and ambitions for their living environments. All such challenges will need to be met by sophisticated solutions. Some of these solutions will be achieved by bringing the whole community into the discussion and others by a combination of soft and hard services that allow the collection of funds and maintenance of the quality of the environment. As ever this is a complex role that we property managers have been doing instinctively for a long time but subtle changes mean that we must begin regard ourselves as important factors in the delivery of wider well-being of our customers.

What is this change? New schemes may routinely include leasehold and shared ownership, market rented, fair rented and social rented tenancies. Price pressures will see shared renters next door to families and older people trading down living next door to young professionals, key workers or those previously in housing need. In such mixed communities there is a new responsibility for the managing agent and that is to listen to the needs of all and ensure there is a continuous and community wide discussion taking place. This includes allowing full representation of different groups and engaging with community leaders. Allowing collective action gives managers the power and support to make changes and improvements significantly more efficiently.

As an industry we remain bogged down in technical jargon, regulation and limited working patterns and defensive behaviours that curtail the real improvements that we are able to bring. Whilst continuing to recognise the importance of the safety and technical elements of our role, we need to embrace the wider opportunity to be the hub around which communities, particularly in large developments, can control and bring continuous improvement to their environment.

What an opportunity that must represent to further our importance as the experts in the residential built environment.

Is it time for legislation for freehold houses with estate rent charges?

In the last ten years there has been a massive increase in developments that rely on estate rent charge deeds to collect funds to maintain public open spaces, gates, gutters, play areas and more. Why the increase? Principally because local authorities no longer adopt roads on new developments nor pick up responsibility for play areas, grassed areas, woodland and other amenity and public spaces.

A number of factors resulted in this change. Firstly LA's required roads to be to adoptable standards - and these were often set at impractically high standards for developers. Secondly commuted sums were no longer made available to LA's so that they could manage these areas.

Of course we could argue that new home owners will already be paying a local taxation that should cover such services, but somehow this has been shrouded over time. What we are left with is an additional charge to maintain and insure public amenity space and this management opportunity has been embraced, not only by traditional property management agents but by highly specialised amenity management companies. Neither are not bound by any specific landlord and tenant legislation that would apply to, for example, management of a leasehold block of flats.

Charges tend to be modest and relate to grounds maintenance, road and gutter maintenance and public liability insurances. However they may also include pumps, water purification, water features, play areas, gates etc. Basically anything that cannot be red-lined to a specific property is picked up. There must be a fee for this activity so it is easy to see how costs can quickly move from modest to quite significant.

Sometimes there is an amenity company created to ensure these matters are dealt with that is held by the agent. Sometimes there is simply a deed requiring a payment calculated by an agent. Either way there is nothing that might control the behavior of the service provider and in many cases no way of removing them from office or of ensuring value for money is always achieved. There is no need for the incumbent provider to evidence any price testing or to develop any performance indicators although the Rentcharge Act 1977 does require charges to be reasonable and this is not just limited to the provision of services.

There are no trade bodies, qualifications or regulation in this sector but because costs are generally fairly low the topic does not often reach the headlines. Collection of charges is usually straightforward and covered by s.121 Law of Property Act 1925 which could allow distraint of goods or even re-entry under certain circumstances, leaving the freehold house owner with little choice but to pay regardless of the quality of services (EDIT I am subsequently advised by my learned Twitter friends that this abolished in April2014).

Isn't it time that freehold home owners who contribute to amenity land or estate charges were given the same protections as leaseholders? After all there are a very significant number of large regeneration schemes now underway that will rely on collection of such charges to maintain significant infrastructure on village sized and often mixed use/tenure developments.

For more information look at the Rentcharge Act 1977 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1977/30/part/1