Overview of Residential Services

Managing a large range of properties we understand that the services required can be as equally varied.

Our unique approach allows us to meet any demand for services from every day cleaning and gardening to water treatment plants and 24 hour security teams.

How We Work

Our business is centred on the ethos of using staff with unique skill sets. This allows us to provide the best possible service with a prompt and accurate response to our clients but without having to rely heavily on external resources.

Our team includes highly trained insurance people, a lawyer, an LLM specialising in property law, a chartered builder with architectural qualifications and a quantity surveyor. Senior staff are members of the IRPM.

Our operation is small enough to be sure of personal care and attention but with the extensive experience to match larger organisations. We appoint an estate manager for each property – a dedicated single point of contact who reports to the Managing Director at EPM twice every week. Our MD is also involved personally on all new developments for the first twelve months and takes responsibility for larger schemes.

We like to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. We’re regularly in touch with residents in the evening and early hours of the morning to make sure that any emergency matters are sorted out quickly and efficiently.

Our Contracts Manager visits all our properties regularly and even carries his own toolbox to carry out small minor repairs or adjustments while on site to save time and money.

Communications

We believe that quick, effective and regular communications are fundamental to providing high quality property management services. We also believe in meeting people face to face, rather than over-relying on phone calls, letters and emails.

Many of our residents are professional working people who are out during the day. We therefore understand the importance of giving them personal attention at any time they need it – rather than being faced with an “out of hours” answering machine.

Our manned call centre operates call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. Our management team is also contactable by phone or email day or night, to make sure we respond as soon as we possibly can – something that’s very rare in our sector.

We work hard to keep residents well informed about the issues that matter to them – especially by reporting on any issues and how they’re being resolved. We do this through regular meetings and newsletters that are specific to each development we look after.

Budgets & Accounts

Our fees are below the national average. We work hard to maintain excellent value for money by keeping our team tight and our costs down.

EPM work closely with developments in producing the annual service charge budgets. We also prepare in conjunction with this a long term plan of at least 10 years which sets out the expected works for this period and the likely costs. This allows for future reserve budgeting and reduces the problem of unexpected surprises.

Our accounting and billing are fully transparent. Each key heading is explained and broken down in detail so that residents can see what they’re getting and know how we’re spending their money. When we meet with residents, we provide full reconciliation to budget reporting.

We use various firms of external accountants to prepare service charge accounts, statutory and dormant company accounts. All are fully compliant with the RICS service charge residential management code, as well as all legislation relating to client monies and accounting. Accounts are prepared in conjunction with the lease for the development and under current legislative guidelines, and are distributed within three months of each year end.

Insurance

Our insurance cover is very extensive. Policies are bespoke and tailor-made for our clients. We market test them annually.

As well as covering all the basics such as fire, flood, storm and malicious damage, they also include terrorism insurance – more and more important these days but something that others ignore.

We can also provide bespoke liability insurance cover for individual resident directors and officers of resident management and right to manage companies.

We work closely with a specialist team of brokers to make sure we get the best deal and claims service for our clients, as well as two of the leading loss adjusters in the UK.

Maintenance

We understand the importance of responding to any maintenance issues fast, and resolving them just as speedily.

Our pool of reliable and proven contractors and the economies of scale we achieve by looking after many developments in the same locations are key to our track record in this critical area.

We can almost always have a contractor on site the same day that an issue is reported, and very often with an hour or even less.

Where it’s a question of larger scale work that needs competitive quotes, our in-house surveyor produces a specification to enable our property manager to consult with the relevant committee or board of directors for the development. If the works exceed £250 per leaseholder, we will initiate a full section 20 consultation.

We select, vet and manage our third party contractors extremely carefully. Our property inspectors visit the site, and meet the contractors before and after the work takes place to make sure it’s carried out properly. We are always able to provide evidence of work at review meetings with relevant invoice files.

We are happy to work with your existing contractors if you so wish providing they can supply the relevant references and insurances.

Long Term Planning

No-one likes being caught out by nasty surprises. So as far as possible – and always within the terms of the lease – we carry out forward planning and costing on a long term basis. This usually covers a ten year period, but can be as far ahead as fifty.

Our long term planning includes cyclical works such as external and internal decorations. We also aim to provide for possible unknowns like roof and lift replacements, door entry phones, driveways and recarpeting.

This means that we’re able to reserve and allocate funds which are put aside each year to help prevent large unknown supplemental costs to residents.

Compliance

Our accreditations as members of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA), the Association of Retirement Housing Managers (ARHM), the Institute of Residential Property Management (IRPM) and the Property Ombudsman Services mean that we stay fully compliant with all the regulations and legislation that governs the property management profession.

These regulations are constantly evolving. Audits of our operations by ARMA make sure of our conformity and keep us up-to-date – as do the professional seminars, webinars and meetings that we regularly take part in.

We also help to ensure that the resident management companies and right to manage companies that we work with also stay compliant.

Project Management

We are fully compliant with all Consultation under Section 20 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985 as amended by Landlord & Tenant Act 1987 and Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.

Where a contribution form all or one leaseholder exceeds £250.00 consultation has to be given in accordance with the above legislation. We charge a fee of 6.5% plus VAT of the contract sum. Many agents make a charge for works that exceed a certain sum, sometimes lower than that required by Section 20. Our fee includes all administration fees in dealing with the issue of all the Notices required and also the day to day management of the project by our Contracts Manager, who will access the areas affected by scaffolding or ladders to ensure he can view the works being carried out and approve them.

When it comes to external and internal decorations EPM have partnered with paint manufacturers who provide detailed decorations specifications in conjunction with our Contracts Manager. Paint manufacturers will appoint a surveyor to ensure the project is being completed as per the specification.