The Managing Agent is not your 'mate', mate.

I recently had to put together a letter to a Landlord’s agent asking for various items for the purposes of a service charge audit, as a demand had come out of the blue for an extra £27k for service charge items.  There was also a 10% ‘pre arrangement fee’  on all of the service charge items with another 10% managing agents fee on the total! Hence I sought to investigate this fee on fee charging arrangement, which did not reflect the lease terms.

The NHS Client was paying near on half a million pounds a year to this Landlord for one block of accommodation but unfortunately the managing agent seemed to be more of a construction company rather than a company used to dealing with service charges per se, and in particular, did not seem to be familiar with the RICS code of Practise for commercial service charges.

Having put together an extensive letter and asked my Client to review before sending, my Client asked me to ‘tone it down’ because they want to be ‘friends with the Landlord.’  I was surprised because I thought the letter was incredibly normal for a service charge audit – and did not think that the Agent would be surprised given their fresh demand for extra money out of the blue.

I  felt a loss with this ‘friends’ business and sought to sensitively explain to the NHS Client that the Managing Agent is not the Landlord. I’m still not sure that they understood.

So for my blog I decided to list a few golden rules to help NHS tenants understand this relationship:-

1)      The relationship between Landlord and Tenant is based on the lease contact.

2)      You do not have to be ‘friends' or 'mates’ with the Managing Agent to do a great job for your Client or Employer.

3)      Always be polite and professional, engaging in timely communications, face to face where possible.

4)      Understand that the Agent is NOT the Landlord.  They merely represent the Landlord and can be taken  ‘off the job’ by the Landlord at very short notice.

5)      If you are a Tenant as big/reliable at paying rent as the NHS, you do not have to put up with second best from your Agent/ Landlord.

6)      If you are a Tenant in occupation of massively over-rented accommodation, yet paying reliably, again,  you do not have to put up with second best.

7)      Never be shy of raising issues in support of financial transparency and industry best practise.

8)      Never be shy of raising contractual issues in support of the proper performance of the lease contract.

9)      Long term contractual relationships are based on correct administration of the lease contract and NOT on the rapport with the Managing Agent.

10) Most commercial Landlord's know that 'happy tenants make happy rent payers'. Make sure they are keeping you happy! 

There’s probably lots more of rules that I could think of, but that's plenty for this blog. More soon!