What does my management fee pay for?

The management fee is a small part of your service charge. While we collect service charges to cover the day-to-day running costs of the development, the management fee specifically covers the costs we incur to manage your development. These include:

COMMUNICATIONS

• Providing management information to our customers.
• Keeping in touch with individual customers regarding management correspondence.
• Provision of our customer service team to handle all customer inquiries.
• Access to your online account where you can view and pay bills, report issues, and review information on your property.

DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT

• Preparing specifications for works (such as cleaning, window cleaning, and gardening), arranging tendering, and administering maintenance contracts.
• Conducting property inspections, general visits, and addressing arising issues.
• Arranging ad-hoc repairs and managing contractor/supplier performance.
• Employing and working with specialist advisors such as building surveyors or structural engineers.
• Providing an on-call Development/Property Manager 365 days a year for out-of-hours support.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

• Managing communal area insurance claims with the insurer.
• Administering public liability insurance and providing professional indemnity insurance.
• Arranging periodic health and safety and fire risk assessments of the communal areas.
• Reviewing and organizing works resulting from the risk assessments conducted.

Recently, The Property Institute (TPI) conducted a comprehensive review of service charge costs and pressures within the industry. This review compiles anonymised, development-specific data to create a Service Charge Index, which aims to provide insight into increases in service charge costs.

Over the past five years, service charges have consistently outpaced inflation. This rise is largely driven by substantial increases in the costs of building insurance, utilities, and the implementation of new building safety regulations. The TPI data shows that management fees have increased at a rate below cumulative inflation.

The Service Charge Index and accompanying commentary are available here.