about-image.png Block Management for Developers and Investors

Introduction

Mainstay manages around 35,000 residential apartments in schemes ranging from 10 unit conversions to 1200 unit complex mixed-use new build schemes, with a diverse range of services including, concierge and site staff, leisure facilities, retail, cafe bars, business centres, offices, live-work units and guest accommodation.

Our clients are wide-ranging and include over 200 resident management companies, most of the top 20 developers Nationwide and numerous freehold investment companies.. This client base provides us with a wealth of experience across the property management sector and a full and complete understanding of all types of residential property.

Whilst the building of new developments has slowed, the residential facilities management market continues to change with a more complex and challenging legislative framework; in particular, the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, Health & Safety regulations and Companies Acts.

Our SolutionOur Clients have always expected a high level of service but with more competition, this has become key to maintaining long term relationships with our clients. Mainstay has recognised this and has sought to tailor its approach on a property by property basis, seeking to provide an open and informative management style at a price that reflects the level of service on offer.

Mainstay believes that services should be personalised to reflect leaseholders as customers. For this reason, each development is run by an experienced property manager who has clear responsibility for every aspect of management. Our managers are assisted by an office-based advisor who knows each development and client and is available throughout the day to pass on guidance, advice and organise repairs.

Behind the scenes, these property managers are supported by numerous expert teams including service charge accountants, helath & safety and compliance, insurance and company secretarial services ensuring access to all relevant expertise across a wide range of disciplines.  This allows our managers to maintain a one-to-one relationship with their customers and provide excellent management services. 

Residential Block Management
Mainstay prides itself on the quality and scope of services that we offer to our Developer and Freeholder clients.

Successful property management relies on all parties working as a team for the benefit of the development. Residential management is a complex and time intensive form of management with a wide range of customers and developments, each with varied requirements and legal setup.

Appointing a professional managing agent like Mainstay to take on the management obligations under the lease will provide freeholders, developers, and head-leaseholders with the reassurance that their property investments and customers are in safe hands.

Many smaller local agents can offer a low priced service but do not offer the service levels, inspection regimes, health & safety compliance and documentation records that larger national agents can provide. To quote the common adage - “You get what you pay for….”

Mainstay gives clients the best possible solution- a national agent and a property manager with local knowledge.  This allows us to provide our customers with all the benefits that a large company brings, such as cost savings from bulk purchasing of utilities and national contracts, and centralised records whilst also giving our residents a visible site presence and a contact who knows their development, the residents and the contractors working on the site.

Build & Planning Consultation
Mainstay welcomes the opportunity to consult with developers during the planning and pre-build phase to ensure that new developments are built with service charges in mind.   Once built there is little that can be done to reduce the ongoing operating and maintenance charges for a building, but by considering the systems and layout of the site during planning, small changes can lead to large reductions in ongoing costs with little or no increase to the outlay.

Mainstay will also assist in advising on appropriate legal structures for developments, lease covenants and legal documents for resident management companies. Early involvement in new sites means that we can ensure an in-depth knowledge of the site and that all service charge estimates are accurate to assist with initial sales.

We are also happy to provide basic training to sales staff on service charges and management to assist them with potential purchasers.

Handovers of Sites into Management
A couple of months prior to your anticipated management handover date, Mainstay’s new business team will contact you to arrange meetings on site with the site manager and any appropriate contractors. These meetings allow us to cross-check the systems that are onsite and to finalise the ongoing maintenance regime for the development and fine-tune the service charge budget.

As with all projects, investing time in the planning stage allows us to be absolutely clear concerning the required management regimes and the likely costs involved.

Mainstay has a documented and in-depth handover process giving confidence to our clients that the handover into management will be smooth and efficient.

Day to Day Support Mainstay’s unique structure ensures that our customers have a recognised and contactable team looking after them.   We provide all our sites with a local property manager supported by a team at head office providing technical and administrative support.   Our managers, each supported by their own property service advisor (PSA) manages on average   between 15-20 schemes each.  This ensures that they can devote sufficient time to each development and establish long-term working relationships with their customers.

Mainstay maintains accurate and ongoing records of all our sites from correspondence with individual customers to inspection and maintenance reports for site equipment.

Information Technology
Information technology plays a mjor part in delivering cost effective FM solutions to our clients and Mainstay has operated arguably the industry's leading property management software, Qube, for some 10 years.  We have invested in the latest telephone technology to ensure rapid customer response and call monitoring so that we can accurately predict future resource requirments.

Our website provides us with an instant and central means of communication with our customers and we are constantly improving this to increase ourour services and provide helpful guidance to our customers. 

Appointing Mainstay will provide access to a number of secure pages dedicated to your development.  These pages provide valuable information on the key points of contact within Mainstay, important dates for the development and ongoing works updates together with downloadable copies of insurance documents, accounts and budgets.

Leaseholders are also able to make payments for service charges, order security fobs and report faults online.

Electronic Site InspectionsMainstay Property Managers are equipped with a PDA-based site inspection tool which provides them with a fast and accurate way of recording their site observations, taking photographs and reporting instantly any repair jobs that are required back to head office.  The site inspection reports are stored electronically and can be shared with clients.

Head Office staff have instant access to the jobs reported.  These are then passed to contractors for action and a record kept of actions taken to remedy.   The system enables us to track and monitor all site inspections and review outstanding jobs ensuring that we meet and exceed our contractual obligations to our clients.

Emergency Assistance 
Outside of normal office hours, Mainstay provides emergency support for any repairs or maintenance that affect either the communal areas of the development or a number of apartments, for example in instances of fire or major flood.   We also provide a make-safe service for the development.

For our developer and investor clients we are also able to offer an out of hours service to support any warranty obligations. Please let us know if this is a service that you would be interested in.

Financial Budgets
Mainstay recognises that we are an agent working on behalf of our client and whilst we will provide our best advice and guidance, ultimately the decision-making rests with our clients. As a result, we will provide our clients with a copy of the financial budget in advance of the financial year in order that the details can be checked and signed off in plenty of time.

Our budgets are primarily based on previous years expenditure and our knowledge of other sites and other influencing factors.  By working as a team, we allow our clients to control their expenditure whilst ensuring that the lease is adhered to and all statutory  obligations fulfilled.

Regular Financial Reports
Financial information is key to successful property management and Mainstay employs financial accountants to ensure our accounts are kept fully up to date and compliant.  Most managing agents comply with current RICS Code of Practice and the lease requirements in providing annual audited service charge accounts at the end of the financial year.  Mainstay goes further by providing its clients with regular financial reports.  This way, our clients are able to track and influence expenditure against budget at an early stage improving financial decision-making at the development. 

Void Units
The management of void units on a development is primary function of a managing agent. It is important to get the balance right between providing essential and high-quality services to early residents whilst reducing the ongoing maintenance costs to the developer.

In return we ask our Developer clients to pay void costs in a timely manner since it is essential to the wellbeing of a scheme to ensure that sufficient service charge funds are in place at all times.

We will work closely with our clients to ensure that both parties receive the best value for money, this could include phasing the management handover of the development or leaving certain services under developer control whilst works are completed. Mainstay actively manages void costs and provides full reports to clients at an agreed frequency.

Fully Audited Annual Financial Accounts
Mainstay has a team of qualified and committed service charge accountants with direct responsibility for a number of residential developments. Each accountant is ably assisted by a purchase ledger assistant and cashier to ensure that our financial records are maintained in good order.

Mainstay aims to provide all service charge accounts within four months of the financial year end although the industry standard is six months. Where this is not possible for any reason, we will issue Section 20B Notices ensuring that service charges remain payable and that the client is compliant.

Service Charge Monies
Mainstay holds all client monies in ring-fenced trust accounts which are held securely and purely for the benefit of your development. Interest that is payable on the account is payable to the benefit of the service charges also.

Resident Group Meetings
Our general management contract builds in a series of meetings that are included within our fees.   Mainstay is flexible in its approach and the times and frequencies of meetings can be changed according to the needs of our clients.  We strongly believe that resident meetings and accompanied site inspections are a necessity for good site management.

Health and Safety
Health and safety management is an important and time-intensive activity and the penalties for breaches of Health and Safety Law are of serious concern.  As a result Mainstay invests heavily in ensuring that all our managements are completely compliant and safe.

Mainstay has a dedicated team who track and control all maintenance contracts and statutory inspections to ensure that these take place and any resultant works are completed.  We ensure that all systems comply with relevant legislation, any British Standards and the manufacturer’s recommendations. Through proactive maintenance and inspection, we believe this protects our managements and customers and ultimately also prolongs the working life of the equipment.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, 2005 requires for the operator of a building to ensure that a regular fire risk assessment is carried out on the structure and communal facilities. Mainstay directly employs its own team of Health & Safety consultants to carry out these activities and will ensure full complaince wth this and other regulations.

Contractor monitoring
There are many contractors around who will carry out work at a low cost but provide no reassurance on their methods and often hold no insurance if the worst should happen. It is important to both Mainstay and our Clients that contractors provide a good quality service and represent value for money.  Good contractors are yet another key element to successful property management. They are often the most regular visitors to a development and their services need to be strictly defined and closely monitored.

In 2008, Mainstay took the bold decision to bring our contractor accreditation in house. This allows us to check and maintain all control systems for all contractors working on our sites including working method statements and insurance.

Credit Control 
Managing property with funds can be challenging.  Managing property without funds is impossible. The strain that funding issues can cause our clients and developments is one that can often be avoided. No funds in the service charge account means we cannot do our job – if we can’t do our job then residents are reluctant to pay and this creates a vicious circle that is very difficult to escape.

Collecting service charges is one of the main reasons we are employed by our clients, so we should not be apologetic for being good at chasing money that is owed. Mainstay operates a highly prescriptive arrears policy across our sites. This can make us unpopular with individual lessees but ultimately is to the benefit of the development and our Clients.

Handover of the Management CompanyMany of the developments under our management are instructed by a Resident Management Company client. For new developments, this company is usually under the directorship of the developer or freeholder but once the last unit is sold, the company is often handed over to a group of resident directors.

The prospect of becoming a resident director can be a daunting experience and it can be difficult to obtain volunteers from the residents. Mainstay is experienced at management company handovers and are happy to work with both parties to ensure a smooth transition.

Mainstay offers Directors and Officers Insurance Cover through our brokers and we can also take on the role of Company Secretary through our subsidiary company, Mainstay (Secretaries) Limited.

Site Staff and Training
Many residential developments benefit from having onsite staff either through a concierge, caretaker or cleaner. Mainstay is able to take on employment and supervision of site staff through Mainstay Facilities Management (MFM).

MFM supply staff to a large number of sites across the country. Our site staff are often the first point of call for our customers and as a result their knowledge and attitude are particularly important in creating a good corporate image both for Mainstay and our Clients.

Each member of staff is provided with customer service support, site specific training and training in all relevant health and safety law and procedural requirements.

We closely monitor all our staff and work hard to continuously improve the services we can provide.

Mixed Use Management
In addition to residential management, Mainstay has a wealth of experience at dealing with mixed use buildings. Mainstay has the distinct advantage of having both commercial and residential expertise allowing us to take on complex service charge structures whilst ensuring that both commercial and residential units are well managed and fully compliant with their relevant codes of practice.

Our flexible approach to management allows us to tailor our services to meet the requirements of our clients. ”