The developer for four large apartment blocks, comprising a total of 519 apartments, in East Manchester appointed three different Managing Agents to manage the four developments.

Scanlans Property Management LLP quickly established a close working relationship with the Directors of the Management Company for the development they were responsible for, which comprised 97 apartments.

Working with the Directors, they were able to instigate services specifically tailored to that development, where a professional approach to aspects of property management, i.e. regular Directors meetings, Annual General Meetings, the employment of Building Surveyors to carry out planned maintenance reports for medium to long term cyclical maintenance requirements and leaseholder meetings to identify concerns/ideas for improving the management of the development.

A number of the Directors at the four developments owned properties in different blocks and as such there was an overlap of Directorships across the four sites. On seeing how well Scanlans were managing one development, the Directors of the site adjacent contacted Scanlans and after several meetings were convinced by their approach, and disinstructed their Managing Agents and appointed Scanlans.  Since then services were employed over two sites using a specialised care taking service to provide daily attendance and maintenance upkeep including an out-of-hours service, in order that major maintenance incidents could be acted upon as soon as possible and limit the damage caused, for example, from leaks or other incidents.

Through Scanlans contacts, we were able to significantly reduce the Buildings Insurance costs and in turn the service charge for this development and work very closely with the Directors on all Management Company matters to establish trust and restore their faith that the development could be managed in a professional manner.

The other two developments, at the time, did not have Resident Directors.  However, leaseholders approached Scanlans for advice on how to take control of their Management Company and as they were dissatisfied with the service provided by the current Managing Agents, appointed Scanlans on both developments. The care taking service has been employed over all four sites by the same company and through economies of scale, the same contractors for window cleaning, gardening, gate maintenance etc. are employed on all four sites to minimise cost.  The appearance of the management and finances of all developments have been vastly improved and, working closely with the Directors of each development, we have been able to improve services year on year.