The service for you if you live in a flat in Surbiton.
Transform the way you get your block management and maintenance jobs done
– and get back your free time

This is a 40-minute meeting or phone call to run through your responsibilities as director of your residents’ management company and ensure that you’re aware of all potential pitfalls.

Many directors are surprised to learn of the consequences of getting the core activities wrong. As directors of a company you have serious obligations, which can be easily overlooked. Many directors simply feel they are taking on the role as a favour to their neighbours and they have no idea of the extent of the responsibilities involved.

At the end of the Health Check you will have a good understanding of what you are doing well and also where you are exposed.

Many directors are reluctant to hand over responsibility for their building to outside agents. This is quite understandable. The Kick Start package allows us to demonstrate how we could support you without interfering. You remain in control but we highlight the areas you may need to consider.

With the bespoke website for your block included for six months, it’s a great way to try before your buy. It includes:

• Our ‘bring us your cardboard box’ service! Often we find directors have inherited a bulging file or a cardboard box or a suitcase of papers going back at least a decade! Sound familiar? We will go through yours to find the lease and all the other key documents and extract all the important information and key dates for you. We’ll then load them onto your own secure website.
• Your community website Good communication can make all the difference in getting consensus to key decisions and creating happy neighbours. We will set you up with a tailored website for your block which gives you secure access to your building information and confidential documents.
• Insurance and utilities review As an added bonus we will review your insurance cover and utility bills for the common parts of your building to see how they match up against the best of breed, and offer the best value available.
• Your action plan Based on what we discover, we will provide you with an action plan for the next three months, making sure your attention is focused only on the key priorities.

There is no commitment. Our services are provided on a customer-controlled basis so that you only pay for the help you need. If, after receiving the action plan, you feel you would like us to get involved with some activities in the future, we’d be happy to discuss this with you but there is no requirement for you to pay for anything else.

This package suits small blocks who are happy to take on the management of the block but may not be up to speed with the legal and safety aspects of running the building. It allows you to spend your time productively working to a planned programme of events.

The service charges are issued on your behalf in line with current legislation. Your regular suppliers are paid and we will help develop the budget for the year. We will prepare the paperwork for the accountant and agree a safety programme with you. This package also includes a bespoke website for your block so that you can store and retrieve key documents and keep residents up to date with activity in your building.

This package suits associations who are struggling to keep up with the responsibilities of the board of directors. In order to manage a block effectively, you the need time, energy and know-how to do it. We recognise that sometimes you don’t have all of these within your group of directors so this is a great way of keeping on top of the role and outsourcing most of the paperwork.

In addition to the Core Administration services, we will undertake a building condition report by a qualified surveyor to establish the work required in your building and develop a maintenance programme with you.

We will provide a safety review to cover essential and desirable safety actions going forward.

We will also agree with you a medium term service charge forecast to ensure you have sufficient funds to cover the obligations of the lease.

We recognise that sometimes we may need more meetings at your request if there are many outstanding issues. We are happy to accommodate this.

Many directors like to have details of the expenditure on their building throughout the year, rather than waiting for the annual accounts. This service also includes more frequent visits to your building.

The Night and Day service contains a dedicated out of hours emergency phone number where our partner will triage any problems residents report and, were necessary, send out contractors outside office hours. They are aware of the impact of the cost to leaseholders and work hard to keep call-out costs at a reasonable level.

The Company Secretary role is an administrative task which many directors find onerous. We work with a specialist company secretary who has detailed knowledge of the Companies Acts and Landlord & Tenant Acts to ensure you stay compliant with the law.

Call us on 020 8399 0170 or email us at info@verticalvillage.co.uk to find out more about how we can support you as director of your residents’ management company – and what we would charge for the service you require.

This is a 30-minute phone call or face-to-face meeting to run through the lease, the management company conditions and your tenancy agreement. We also discuss any common problems that tenants experience in your block.

We visit your property to check your compliance with all legal safety requirements. During this visit we also identify any maintenance issues, such as inadequate leak-proofing in kitchens and bathrooms, which could cause problems. We provide you with a summary of any action you need to take and also with a tenants’ handbook. The tenants’ handbook avoids tenants having to contact you unnecessarily to find out where things are (such as the stopcock) and what to do in events such as appliance breakdowns. It also clarifies what is expected of them under the conditions of the lease; this can go a long way towards avoiding problems with neighbours.

We do, or arrange to have done, any jobs that you can’t do yourself on your rental property.

Call us on 020 8399 0170 or email us at info@verticalvillage.co.uk to find out more about how we can help you as a landlord of a rental property in Surbiton – and what we would charge for the service you require.