Service charges
Good service charge management is critical for you and your occupiers. We ensure that your service charge income is consistent, the balance is well-managed, and we are proactive in achieving best value.
Service charges play a vital role in securing and retaining occupiers – it can make or break a good landlord/tenant relationship.
Cost-conscious occupiers evaluate every expense in running their business and consider the part service charge plays in their overall occupancy cost. Ultimately, this means an occupier must consider charges to be reasonable and good value. Achieving this is part of our passionate work to enhance the reputation of our clients.
Budgeting
The numbers are certainly one of the greatest concerns for you and your occupiers. We pride ourselves on our thorough, proactive approach to budgeting and the support offered by our excellent financial team.
We establish the budget for the management of your property by assessing the property’s requirements, your aspirations and the needs of your occupiers. We do this also with the goal of keeping service charges at a level that is appealing to occupiers.
Our effective management of the money, with regular, transparent reporting, is frequently cited by our customers as one of the most important aspects of our service.
Property maintenance
Planned property maintenance is the foundation of property management, it quite literally keeps the roof up and the walls together. We begin our relationship with a new client or new property by assessing the investment(s) and establishing the required routine maintenance.
After our initial assessment, we revisit the property to review the needs of your property and adjust the maintenance plan accordingly.
There are also those expenses that can come unexpectedly, so we keep you financially prepared. We work into the service charges, for every occupier, an amount of money that is used to create a sinking fund. This fund will help mitigate the impact of large maintenance expenses on you or your tenants.
Negotiating service charges
Landlords should always try to maintain buildings to a high standard to guarantee their investment, whereas tenants want to occupy and make use of the property at the lowest cost to them. This makes service charge claims contentious and understandably tenants are sometimes unhappy about paying for works they didn’t expect or have little control over.
We can act on your behalf to create or review any proposals you wish to make to your tenants, and where necessary negotiate the service charge claims and scope of works.
A variety of high-quality services
To effectively maintain your property and comply with your lease obligations, we will manage a comprehensive range of service charge contracts. These will include items such as:
- Utilities
- Planned property maintenance
- Cleaning, window cleaning and maintenance of common areas
- Waste management, hygiene and washroom services
- Health & Safety, fire safety, pest control, environmental and security management
- Management of M&E services and lift maintenance
- Management of car parking areas, landscaping, litter picking and winter gritting
The variety we offer allows you to create a level of service that is tailored to your building and your market. Whether you intend to take care of ‘the basics’ or provide something extra, we deliver effective and high-quality solutions.
Managing contractors
The service items are delivered by our contractors and we make sure that they are representing you as a landlord and us as your managing agent at all times. This involves maintaining excellent communication with our contractors and performing quality control on their work through our regular visits to your property.
We are also constantly seeking best value and great quality, and an important part of managing contractors is reviewing contracts. We continually and proactively refine a bespoke management solution for you, with contracts tendered accordingly. In short, if we find a better supplier, we will always ensure you are receiving the best.
We ensure that all our contractors are properly qualified to undertake the work we ask of them. Their adherence to health and safety is critical to both property owners and KWB.
KWB Property Management Ltd is an appointed representative of Howdens UK Insurance Brokers Ltd, which is approved and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (no. 307663).
