Customer Satisfaction Survey
Everyone on the estate is being sent a "Customer Satisfaction Survey" by Estates & Management Ltd. You will know this company as the one that collects the £5 per year fixed rentcharge (as opposed to the variable rentcharge collected by FirstPort.
This is happening because I wrote to Holdings & Management (Solitaire) Ltd complaining that the administration fees have been increased by 41% since 2012 and calling on them to put the management contract out to tender. Initially they didn't respond, but then I wrote a second letter threatening legal action. It has been my experience that when a company doesn't want to deal with a complaint they will ignore you until you threaten legal action.
H&M Solitaire are a holding company, which means that they are nothing more than an address and four "Directors", one of which is just a company-secretary-for-hire company. If they need to do anything then they hire an agent to do it for them. They have hired FirstPort as their agents to manage the estate, and now they have hired Estates & Management Ltd to do this survey.
I wrote as the Chair of the Residents Association Committee but H&M Solitaire seem to be treating this as a complaint from an individual resident. I've already written to Estates & Management asking them to deal directly with the Committee as representatives of the estate residents, but they have ignored this.
I would ask you to fill in and return the survey as you see fit, bearing in mind the committee position which is:
The committee has regular meetings with the estate manager from Firstport, and we are generally happy with the way in which this is working.
The adminstration charges have increased by 41% since 2012, while total inflation over the same period has been around 7%. This rate of increase cannot be justified. An open tender would probably find other companies who would offer better value for money. I wrote several times to Firstport to ask them to reduce the fee back to something in line with inflation, but they failed to respond.
The service charge is split into two headings on the annual accounts, making it look as if most of the extra money is being paid to a professional accountant rather than kept by Firstport. All of Firstport's fees should be kept under one heading as described in the Transfer Document.
Also you will see that question 2 asks if you are a leaseholder or a tenant. If you are the property owner then you are a freeholder, and you should write that in. Most of the properties managed by companies like Firstport and Estates & Management are blocks of flats, and this seems to be a standard survey.
