Freehold Managers PLC Omdömen 

Over a number of years, we've been having a number of problems with the inept property manager, Montalt Management. Freehold Managers plc subcontract them to manage our property. I thought I would engage Freehold Managers via their complaints procedure hoping they would take our problems seriously, investigate them properly and act upon the incompetence, negligence and deceitfulness of their agent. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case and instead we've endured a tedious, unfruitful journey which included the relevant ombudsmen and the First-tier Tribunal Residential Property.

An inexplicable mystery is that Freehold Managers are content to waste their money on legal fees rather than dealing with leaseholders' requests which in this case would be cheaper and quicker. Read on if you are a leaseholder, particularly because their habit of spending on legal fees may ultimately provide a route for leaseholders to teach them to take their contractual obligations and customer service more seriously.

Our previous interactions with Freehold Managers were limited to an annual demand for ground rent. They seem both interested and capable of collecting that. A brief bit of research shows an abundance of accountants in their company directors and the usual company structure leading to a small Caribbean island. I assumed they were just an investment company, interested in the yield from ground rent with the rest of the business being an exercise in cost minimisation but I tried to remain optimistic. I'm not sure what to think of their inclusion of plc in their company name - they are a private limited company and NOT a public limited company.

I first called them to discuss the matter. That call revealed they had no idea what was going on and did not have a policy of monitoring major work ("section 20") on their/our buildings - that wasn't a good sign. Their official complaints procedure is paper-based which is ironically detailed in a pdf which can only be accessed if you login online. Their modus operandi is an acknowledgement letter followed by a response that will tell you that everything is fine or adequate and any deficiencies will be dealt with by their agent and they have passed on feedback to their agent on matters they could improve on. The first time you read these they look reasonable, eventually you realise it's just the same spiel in every response, written by someone with the skills of a secondary school debating team and no interest in actual property management. On a minor plus point, they are fairly prompt in their responses which is more than can be said for our agent who often just ignores leaseholders. This might be useful for getting information out of an uncooperative, obstructive property manager.

I wanted to meet with Freehold Mangers but they repeatedly refused this. I find this is sometimes the best way to assess what you're dealing with and occasionally yields a quick, sensible, business-like conclusion. They also refused to conduct another customer satisfaction survey of leaseholders. A one-off survey was apparently conducted in mid 2017 but I never received this and they say only 6 responses were received. This makes me suspect it was not conducted properly. Freehold Managers refused to provide a summary of this, disingenuously omitted the fact that they had a previous complaint from 13 leaseholders and their own staff admitted in email that "nearly every leaseholder is unhappy". They've refused to provide their evaluation methodology for their property managers. I suspect that's because it's impossible for them to get an accurate, unbiased evaluation with their policy of not conducting regular, leaseholder satisfaction surveys.

Returning to the complaints procedure, it's essential to go through this as it lays the ground for future escalations and can be useful for establishing claims and facts. Their ombudsmen is worth a go as there's no cost to the leaseholder and it might help. In our case they stated that section 20 work wasn't part of their remit and suggested the First-tier Tribunal.

The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) is low-cost, "semi-legal" route for resolving disputes and one that can be used without legal representation. I would only recommend this for issues which are very serious, costly (perhaps over a thousand pounds is a good benchmark) or clear cut. If you are arguing about whether a decrepit fence needs replacing, forget it. If you have a roof that doesn't leak, an inconclusive written report and six years of questionable bungling ending in some keenness to replace that roof without justification, go for it.

The FTT costs are borne by each party unless there's unreasonable behaviour - more on this further down. As far as I can work out there are three tracks, paper judgement for very simple straightforward cases, fast track (not sure) and standard. The standard process is likely to take at least four months end to end. In our case Freehold Managers asked for an initial delay which the judge thankfully refused and I negotiated down some of the initially proposed dates. Our case was actually fairly straightforward, I don't know why the schedule was so drawn out.

My experience of the FTT was a bit mixed. The decision didn't go in favour of the leaseholders and the FTT wasn't as precise as I would expect. I wasn't sure what their standard would be for determining if service charges were reasonable (Liability to pay service charges - Section 27A, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985). Disappointingly, it seems that the standard is below what a home owner would expect IMHO - an unpleasant reminder that leaseholders are second-class home owners. It's also possible that the panel members don't read as much of the documents as you'd hope so it's worth outlining the important ones.

On the bright side, it did dump a huge amount of self-imposed legal costs on Freehold Managers who had at least two external lawyers involved. Also, Freehold Managers had not provided a key document for the case and the Judge ruled this was unreasonable conduct and therefore, unusually, instructed them to pay the applicant's costs! I'd anticipated that omission and I had already told Freehold Managers to include this document in a prior complaint. I suspect their unwise, laissez faire approach and Montalt Management's habit of omission caused this. It's still impossible to fathom why Freehold Managers would spend more money and waste 6 months when they could have simply have paid for the (cheaper) surveyor's investigation report which might have taken 1 month.

The FTT also highlighted that the fact Freehold Managers had completely failed to raise the roof problems with the developer of the property since the surveyor stated it was a construction fault. In previous discussions their agent, Montalt Management, have demonstrated ignorance of the developer and then bizarrely wavered on this matter then illogically refused to discuss it with the developer before the roofs were replaced.

In conclusion, if you have a reasonable and serious dispute then I would recommend multiple, polite, firm complaints with escalation, then go to the ombudsmen and then the First-tier Tribunal. That final step will be expensive for Freehold Mangers and will often wipe out their entire ground rent yield for the year. If you have applied to the First-tier tribunal and they are defending it then I would recommend writing to the company directors immediately to tell them what their staff are doing. This might give a quicker resolution to the dispute, I regret not doing that.