The Competition and Markets Authority wants to know how well - or otherwise - the leasehold management sector is working in England and Wales.
The CMA, which has taken over the responsibilities of the now-defunct Office of Fair Trading, is five months into an exercise looking at whether the market is working well for leaseholders and whether there is effective competition.
The CMA has identified a number of causes for concern about how the market works.
Some leaseholders appear to suffer from a lack of control over aspects of property management, and may experience excessive or unnecessary charging for services arranged by property managers, poor service quality, insufficient transparency, poor communication and ineffective redress.
At the same time, other leaseholders are satisfied with their property management services and the CMA has found evidence to suggest that the existing checks and balances in the market can work well.
The FCA says it has evidence of excessive charges levied by property managers, suggestions of poor service and a lack of transparency over fees, and possible corruption involving managers and contractors.
Now the FCA wants more views and evidence. Responses to the consultation close on September 19 and comments should be sent to Residential Property Management Services Study, Competition and Markets Authority, Victoria House, 37 Southampton Row,
London, WC1B 4AD.
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Comments
In my experience in the lettings industry I have found property management companies are the worst enemy to a letting agency. We charge the Tenants rent and the property management company "supposedly" "manages" the maintenance/communal areas etc.
Guess who gets the flack when they fail The letting agent. With one block of flats we have a number of tenants in we actually got so fed up with complaints from out Tenants that WE (for a fee) began acting as a "filter" between Tenants and the management company. We also encouraged the management company to take on OUR contractors who were reliable (and that saved them money - strange that in't it)
Now the block runs superbly and our Tenants are happy. Instead of them dealing with the management company when communal lights/elevators etc. fail they call us. We log the call on our system and pass it to the management company to deal with. As most of the contractors for the block are recruited by us (therefore reliable) we can chase the issue and keep the Tenant(s) advised of progress.
Shouldn't they already have some idea of how the lettings market is going I think it's all well and fine to want perspectives from people who are involved daily, but that certainly shouldn't take the place of independent research. But glad they've got a start at least.