Building management company responsibilities- can anyone help?

[ShirleyPhallus]

Not sure if this is the right place to add this

I have a flat which is in a small block (8 flats) which I own a share of the freehold for and have become a director of the property management company. I am comfortable we as a company are abiding to the legal, financial side (ie annual accounts, confirmation statement etc), however I can’t find much online about other non-financial legal responsibilities. Things like fire risk assessment, pest control etc etc.

Looking at google is driving me around in circles and some of the other landlords live overseas so not lots of resource to help with this.

Could anyone point me in the direction of a good resource to help on what else we should be doing?

Thank you

I made the mistake of doing this - I hope it goes all right for you, I wasn't suited to it.

Fire risk - we behaved as if we were landlords and risk assessed accordingly.

Pest control - never did anything unless necessary, had a couple of wasps nests to deal with, that was it.

This might be useful

companieshouse.blog.gov.uk/2018/09/26/flat-management-companies-how-they-work-and-whos-responsible/

We also had to keep an eye on water supply, drains etc.

If there's any cladding or balconies there you will probably need to check those for compliance with EWS, not sure what that is but work being done on my current (leasehold) flat for that.

Do you have a reserve fund to deal with emergencies?

Is there not some sort of Terms of Reference doc or Memorandum of Understanding? My in laws are in the same position, but there are a set of rules that they work to.

So, if you're self managing you're responsible to uphold the terms of the lease. This is a really far reaching remit and it encompasses everything from basic maintenance to the health and safety obligations - which can be extremely onerous.

Some resources you might want to look at include the Leasehold Advisory Service (it's a very good website with great resources), and the RICS Service Charge Residential Management Code.

The thing you need to really be aware of is the fire safety legislation. There are moves afoot to change the 'ownership' of the responsibility, which means that it falls on anyone involved in the management of the block, and you will be culpable unless you can demonstrate that you did everything reasonable to mitigate risk to residents - it's not innocent until proven guilty in this case.

Thanks very much everyone, very useful here. To answer questions:

@LunaHeather yes we pay a fixed amount in to an account in the name of the management company (which only certain directors have access to etc) to deal with as a reserve fund

@Andthenanothercupoftea i think we are missing the articles and memorandum and need to get that sorted, but no there is nothing in place at the moment that we have agreed to

@LBOCS2 thank you, that’s really useful. Particularly the fire safety thing is a concern. It’s basically a big house which was converted to flats so has 2 large corridors that all the flats come off and that’s the only communal space. No shared parking, gardens etc. I think that’s probably the reason why we have missed some of this stuff, because it feels like such a small shared space but why I’m keen to get on top of it now

No balconies / cladding etc etc etc