Management Company Fees

Prior to the AGM I had asked the management agent for a copy of the past 12 months electricity bills. I was told no. I was starting simple.

We use a package called MyBlockMan I dont see why all information relating to our contractors, suppliers and bill's cannot be uploaded here and made available to all our owners.

In my case I haven't requested anything from the 2 directors. My requests have been to the Managing Agents Company who I thought managed this for us/our Management Company.
 
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Yes there are serious issues here. The agent is appointing his own suppliers and contractors for work. We are being asked to pay for 3 different pieces of work in the coming year on top of our annual management fee. If we had of been paying the market rate, for example with internal cleaning we would now have alot of the money needed in our sinking fund to pay for this work.
 
It's not unusual for the management agent to be giving work to people they know and trust, to be honest it's an advantage when done right because the contractor should do good work as they won't want the tap turned off. Your Directors just need to be sure to get the odd second quote to keep the agent honest.

FWIW I think you're probably wasting your time trying to hold the existing Directors and agent to account and trying to get them to clean up their act. You might get your management fee down a small amount and will receive no thanks. I think instead you need to speak to other owners and see if they feel the same way as you, if they do then 2-3 of you need to decide that you want to take over as Directors and go about making that happen - the process is generally fairly simple and covered in your memos and arts (available on the CRO website). If you don't have the support of the vast majority of other members honestly I'd suggest try to forget about it and put that effort into saving the few hundred quid elsewhere in your own life.

Have been in almost the exact same scenario and saw all your frustrations played out. It got fixed when a couple of us just kicked out the existing Directors at an EGM.
 
Freddie said:
I dont see why all information relating to our contractors, suppliers and bill's cannot be uploaded here and made available to all our owners.
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Because there is no legal obligation on the directors to give you this information, and they don't like you so they will not provide it voluntarily.
 
Zenith63 said:
It's not unusual for the management agent to be giving work to people they know and trust, to be honest it's an advantage when done right because the contractor should do good work as they won't want the tap turned off. Your Directors just need to be sure to get the odd second quote to keep the agent honest.

FWIW I think you're probably wasting your time trying to hold the existing Directors and agent to account and trying to get them to clean up their act. You might get your management fee down a small amount and will receive no thanks. I think instead you need to speak to other owners and see if they feel the same way as you, if they do then 2-3 of you need to decide that you want to take over as Directors and go about making that happen - the process is generally fairly simple and covered in your memos and arts (available on the CRO website). If you don't have the support of the vast majority of other members honestly I'd suggest try to forget about it and put that effort into saving the few hundred quid elsewhere in your own life.

Have been in almost the exact same scenario and saw all your frustrations played out. It got fixed when a couple of us just kicked out the existing Directors at an EGM.
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Thanks for taking the time for your reply. It's just I know the work 2 of the cleaning companies do from my brothers apartment and from a friends place. One company does windows and external work and the other cleans internally.

So it's not like I'm just Googling contractors. But I get your point.

I'm am trying to weigh up if I'll be able to oust them and at what cost(mental health wise)

I'd be happy to keep paying the same management fee. But if the money we all pay was used in a more cost effective way we would be able to build the sinking fund.(or pay for immediate big ish jobs)

Right now we are being asked to pay €20k immediately for a job and they have another €60k job in the pipeline. These are all separate to the management fee we just paid.

Luckily 1 other owner at the AGM agree with me and we have asked for more options on the €60k job. But the agent and 1 of the directors were all on for ploughing ahead.

Right now we could cover the €20k job with the existing management fee if we changed to some of the providers I have received quotes from.

I haven't picked any contractors off the internet, all are from people who are happy with the different companys work, from places they live in themselves.

Not sure why but the fact you could see my frustrations played out was a good thing in a way...
 
cremeegg said:
Because there is no legal obligation on the directors to give you this information, and they don't like you so they will not provide it voluntarily.
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Is it pointless in me getting a solicitor then?

My plan was to try and get all the info on our budget figures and then put these along side the quotes I have received and present this report/document to individual owners. It needs to be down in black and white.

The very worse that could happen is its gets a conversation going. But hand on heart we can save €6500 - €7000 per year with just the internal cleaning. This is with a reputable company who have done a site visit to where I live and I have seen their work for years in another development.
 
A solicitor will not be able to force them to hand over the bills, if that’s what you’re asking? Again you’re just a shareholder here, imagine being a shareholder in AIB and asking them to send you costs and bills to look at, just not the way companies work, and for good reason.

if you want to pursue it then no solicitor required yet, instead go and speak to owners and see if you have support. You’ll need a clear majority and from people who will actually show up to meetings and vote. A solicitor may be useful at this point to interpret the memos and arts of the company to explain to you what needs to be done to oust the existing Board, though as I say you can look this up yourself either. The Boards if OMCs are supposed to be voluntary, so it is perfectly normal that the Directors should be changing somewhat regularly, so you won’t be doing anything unusual bringing this about.
 
Forget solicitors and company law. You and the other owners have the power to change this using AGM's and EGM's. The Directors are legally allowed under the 2014 Companies Act to make whatever accounting records they like available for inspection to Non-Directors. They are however allowed to place restrictions around the time and place this could be done to avoid people coming up every day looking to check a receipt. Like I said, we had a couple of members go in for 1-2 days every year to look at records and evidence of procurement especially around large items of expenditure etc. If your directors are not willing to allow this, you are entitled to use the AGM or EGM to change the Board as mentioned above if you can get the support from other owners and you really believe there are issues. But as I said before, be ready for indifference, anger, insults, no gratitude, long hours, misery, stress....
 
Ok Sunny. I'm typing up my findings now with the quotes I've received from the different providers, suppliers and contractors. I already have a no. owners who can see the issues we have, but as I have felt, weren't sure what to do with the problems they saw. (We needed a pre AGM get together)

I'm happy to organise us as a collective on this. I know we were this, in terms of being owners but we did all feel individual here.

Up to now I have about €15k in "savings" based on quotes I have received where the contractors with these quotes will be carrying out the same job as the existing ones, in terms of sites visits etc. As I said before I haven't just gone with the cheapest for a "cowboy" job, this is my home.

As someone new to this area, I dont understand why quotes, invoices bills etc aren't just uploaded to the software package all owners currently use and have access to, it called MyBlockMan. The agent in our devopment already maintains the content here.

With this directors or agents wouldnt need to handle/deal with ad hoc requests for information. It's all in one place, single source of truth etc.

Any questions or issue can then be brought up at AGMs and/or meetings we have or could have during the year.
 
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Freddie said:
As someone new to this area, I dont understand why quotes, invoices bills etc aren't just uploaded to the software package all owners currently use and have access to, it called MyBlockMan.

With this directors or agents wouldnt need to handle/deal with ad hoc requests for information. It's all in one place, single source of truth etc.
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To be frank, because of exactly what you're doing now. While you might be doing this with the best of intentions, there are a lot of people out there who have time on their hands and would make a nuisance of themselves going through the receipts querying this and that with Directors who again are giving their time free-of-charge and largely without thanks.

Again lots of direct experience of that right here and I'm only involved in a single tiny development much smaller than yours :(. If you do get on the Board yourself I think you'll look back on this discussion with a smile.
 
Zenith63 said:
To be frank, because of exactly what you're doing now. While you might be doing this with the best of intentions, there are a lot of people out there who have time on their hands and would make a nuisance of themselves going through the receipts querying this and that with Directors who again are giving their time free-of-charge and largely without thanks.

Again lots of direct experience of that right here and I'm only involved in a single tiny development much smaller than yours :(. If you do get on the Board yourself I think you'll look back on this discussion with a smile.
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Ok thank you. My idea would be that questions are all bundled together for the AGM or another organised meeting during the year.

I'd prefer to be asking the management agents company and not the directors as I know the directors are giving of their own time but the agent is getting handsomely paid.

From lots of other posters it seems I'm seeing things in an ideal world....which is far from MC reality.

Everyone so far is telling me the same...my blissful ignorance and naivety is endearing....or delusional :)
 
8till8 said:
Do you mean director of the managing agent or director of the owner management company?





Management agent fees and directors fees are two very different things...OMC directors are not supposed to be paid directors fee's so I presume you mean management agent fee's ??
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can i ask what ever happened in this case
Do you mean director of the managing agent or director of the owner management company? we had a caretaker/director and could spent sinking fee money once they management agent signed off on it. Anything we can do in this case
 
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