Why do I have to pay a Service Charge/Estate Charge?
Posted Monday, May 25, 2020
This can seem daunting when you first hear about it, so we would like to explain what a Service Charge is and what happens if you didn't have a managing agent in place.
The yearly Service Charge/Estate Charge that you pay goes into a fund that, as Managing Agents, we carefully use throughout the budget year, to pay contractors to carry out maintenance works. We do this so that you can enjoy a clean and safe environment - a nice place to live!
When we take on a development to manage, depending on the needs of the development, we set a budget that will cover everything that is necessary to be carried out over that year, such as the upkeep of grounds and play areas, repairs to broken gates, lifts, roofs, and locks. We refresh the paintwork in corridors, stairwells, and hallways, maintain roads that the council doesn’t want to adopt and ensure litter is swept away (depending on the type of development that we manage).
Included in the charges are our management fees, for everything you may not see, such as negotiating contracts, arranging insurance, administration, and accounting services (for receipts, payables, and banking), as well as resolving your concerns. In order to do this of course we have to know when things are not running smoothly for you; the residents and homeowners, which is why we regularly go onsite and attend AGMs, and we make contact with you via mailings. Should you need us out of office hours there’s also a phone number you can call (see our website for details).
Quite simply, without a Managing Agent in place, the common areas of your estate would not be maintained to a nice standard to live in, and it is our daily goal to ensure that they are.
