How can Bright Star help your building with our block management service? 

At Bright Star Lettings, we constantly review our services to ensure we can offer our clients complete property management support. As part of this, we have recently added a block management service to our business. The decision to add a block management service came from hearing about the poor experiences of one of our landlords who had been dealing with complex issues and an unsupportive block management company at one of their other properties which we were not involved with at the time. 

What is block management?

Block management is known by various names, including leasehold management, property management and estate management. Effectively, block management is a service where a company is appointed to oversee and manage a property that includes multiple leaseholders. This often includes blocks of flats and mixed-use buildings with commercial and residential properties. The company will oversee the management of the communal areas, as well as provide conflict mitigation for the leaseholders and ensure the buildings are being run and maintained effectively. 

Management of communal areas could include things such as: 

• organising lift servicing 
• planning and budgeting for regular maintenance works
• organising cleaning schedules 
• overseeing the maintenance of outdoor spaces such as communal gardens and parking 
• considering waste management processes and schedules 
• communicating expectations of communal space use to residents.

Why would you have a block management company for your property?

When we were approached by one of our clients about block management, we took the time to understand what some of the key issues facing leaseholders were, while also establishing how we could best support them. Through this process, we came up with the following list of the top benefits of using a company for your property rather than simply managing the property internally between the existing leaseholders. 

1. They work as a buffer between leaseholders
2. They have experience and expertise to resolve common issues 
3. They can mitigate conflict between leaseholders 
4. They can provide an independent and external view 
5. They can be replaced if you are unhappy without upsetting anyone. 

If you are struggling with conflict in your building or feel no one is managing those day-to-day niggles, please get in touch to see how we can help!

What should a block management company offer leaseholders?

The block management company should work as a buffer and mitigate any conflict between residents and leaseholders within the building. Many block-managed properties will include a mixture of leaseholder occupiers, such as those who own a flat and live in it, as well as tenants of the lease-held properties such as residential tenants and commercial tenants. 

Your block management company should make all the leaseholders feel valued and listened to, but often with smaller blocks this isn’t the case. Many block management companies are large and focus on large blocks of 50 or 100 units. At Bright Star Lettings, we focus on providing a personal service for smaller blocks which are often ignored by the larger providers. We can give you a hands-on personal service where we know all the leaseholders by name and can provide informed and tailored conflict resolution support alongside managing the block effectively. 

We can provide our clients with an independent and external viewpoint which allows us to look beyond the individual residents and consider the best solution for a block as a whole. 

Why might you want to change your provider?

Having spoken to many leaseholders within blocks across Devon, we believe that the top reasons for wanting to change your management company are as follows: 

1. They are ignoring you – many block management companies are very large and smaller blocks can get lost or overlooked 
2. They are not resolving common issues 
3. They are not reducing conflict in your building, or worse yet, they are causing conflict 
4. They lack the personal service to support your building’s community 
5. They are difficult to contact or aren’t there when you need them 

If this sounds like your provider, get in touch to find out how we can assist you with our personal service specifically designed for smaller blocks.