For blocks under fifteen flats
Most managing agents will not take on a block of six or eight flats. The fee does not cover their overheads, so they set a minimum unit count and the smaller buildings get left to fend for themselves. We take them on, because having our own maintenance teams available changes the arithmetic. You are not obliged to use them - but the option is what makes a small block viable to manage properly.
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The honest reason
A managing agent's fee is usually set per flat. Eight flats generates a fraction of what eighty does - but the building still needs a budget, year-end accounts, an insurance renewal, a fire risk assessment, inspections, contractor management and someone to answer the phone. The work does not shrink at anything like the rate the fee does.
Larger agents solve this by drawing a line. Some publish it openly and only take developments above thirty or fifty units. Others do it quietly by quoting a figure they know you will not accept. Either way the outcome is the same: the smallest buildings, which often need the most help, are the hardest to get anyone to look after.
So the honest answer to "why will you take us on when nobody else will" is not that we are nicer. It is that our costs work differently.
Your choice of trades
Most agents hold no trades of their own. When something breaks they source a contractor, wait for a quote, and schedule around someone else's diary.
A minimum call-out charge then lands on a job that took half an hour. On a block of eight, that overhead is a meaningful share of the annual budget - and it is why so many small repairs get deferred until they become large ones.
We run our own maintenance teams. A communal light, a blocked gully, a failed door closer, a section of guttering - we can instruct and complete those without a sourcing delay or a minimum call-out charge, which on a small block is the difference between a repair happening and being deferred.
That is what makes a small block viable to manage properly rather than just on paper. To be clear though: using our teams is your choice, not a condition. We quote alongside anyone else you want to consider, and if you have a local trade you have used for years, we will happily keep working with them.
This is the part that surprises people. A converted house with six flats needs a fire risk assessment as surely as a sixty-flat development does.
Communal areas need electrical testing. Buildings insurance has to be in place and correctly valued. Service charge money has to be accounted for properly. Consultation requirements apply in full.
None of that is reduced because the building is small, and the responsibility sits with whoever manages it - which, in a self-managed block, means the leaseholders personally. Small blocks are not lightly regulated. They are just as regulated, with fewer people to carry it.
Where it hurts
The statutory consultation threshold is set per leaseholder, not per building. That means a small block reaches it on jobs a large development would barely notice. A repair costing a couple of thousand pounds is a few hundred each across eight flats and consultation is triggered; the same job across eighty flats is loose change per person and nowhere near. Small blocks hit the formal process constantly, and boards frequently do not realise until the money has already been spent.
Plenty of small blocks have never built one. Nothing goes wrong for years, and then the roof needs doing and everybody gets an unexpected bill at the same time. Building a reserve is uncomfortable to propose and easy to keep postponing, especially when the person proposing it lives next door to the people paying. We will put the case, show what the building will need and when, and let the leaseholders decide with the figures in front of them.
Self-managed blocks
Plenty of small blocks are self-managed and some of them run perfectly well. It usually stops working for one of a few reasons. The person who quietly did everything moves out. A large piece of work comes along that nobody wants to project-manage. A dispute between two flats makes it awkward for a neighbour to be the one holding the money. Or somebody reads the fire safety requirements properly and realises what has not been done.
If that is where you are, the handover is more straightforward than it looks. We would want the leases, whatever service charge records exist, the insurance policy, any compliance documents and an honest account of what has been deferred. Missing paperwork is normal and not a reason to put the conversation off.
Absent freeholders
Some small blocks are technically managed by a freeholder who takes the ground rent and does very little else. Repairs go unanswered, the fire risk assessment is years old, and leaseholders find out how bad it is when one of them tries to sell.
Depending on the leases and the circumstances there may be more than one route out of that - leaseholders exercising the right to manage among them. We can talk through what management would look like either way, and point you toward proper advice on the legal side.
Areas we cover
Small blocks are dense in exactly the places we work.
Converted houses and small purpose-built blocks run right along the A127 and A13, from the east London boroughs out through south Essex to the estuary towns.
Basildon · Wickford · Billericay · Brentwood · Rayleigh · Benfleet · Canvey Island · Southend-on-Sea · Leigh-on-Sea · Westcliff-on-Sea · Grays · Chelmsford
If your building is nearby but not listed, get in touch and we will tell you honestly whether we can look after it properly.
Get in touch
Tell us how many flats you have and where the building is. Small blocks are a large part of what we do, and we will give you a straight answer.
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What we do
We manage residential blocks and estates for RMCs, RTM companies and freeholders. No sales department, no lettings arm, no distractions
Talk to Us
Whether you are setting up an RTM company or leaving an agent who stopped answering, send us the details of your building and we will come back to you with a proposal.
Nexus Premier Property Management is a block management specialist working across east London and Essex. We look after residential blocks for resident management companies, right to manage companies and freeholders.
Nexus Premier Property Management Ltd
Registered in England & Wales, company no. 17386704
15 Rockstone Place, Southampton, SO15 2EP.
T: 01268 975436
E: info@nexusppm.co.uk