“Where does the money go?...”
1 Star Review
Nov 06,2019
By:
'Steve'
Nov 06,2019
Branch: New Milton, Queensway House, 11 Queensway
Services: Property Management
Rent PCM: £3000
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: CB1
Branch: New Milton, Queensway House, 11 Queensway
Property Management
Rent PCM: £3000
Postcode: CB1
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people found
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Like everyone else who has posted a review here I am also a “customer”, more of a victim, of FirstPort. I own a leasehold property that they “manage”. Just like other reviewers here this means that I have to pay them bills periodically and have to stump up for vastly overpriced buildings insurance. In return for this I receive basically nothing.
Like many others, I wonder why it is that the “service” provided by FirstPort is so bad. What on earth could be behind it? Where does the money go that is paid to them by myself and thousands of other residents and leaseholders?
One thing that's glaringly obvious is that wherever this money is going, it's not being used on maintenance of people's homes or provision of other services. So what's going on?
A partial explanation of this is to be found in the last financial statement of FirstPort, dated December 2018, and filed with Companies House on the 12th August 2019.
First point: last year, FirstPort lost £6.4 million (page 11 of the financial statement). The greatest contribution to their loss was due to the write-off of a loan to another company in the group of which FirstPort is part. The total of this loan was over £9.7 million (page 21).
I have no idea whether this is legal or not, but this has to raise a few eyebrows, doesn't it?
Second point: FirstPort is in possession of a fund of £79 million of client funds, that is, money that's paid to them by residents, property owners, and leaseholders (page 26). Yes, that's right, they've got almost eighty million pounds of our money just sitting there doing nothing. So they don't spend the money that we pay them on maintenance etc, they just keep it.
In addition, there must be a considerably investment income from a fund this size - where's that going? We have no idea…
So there's a few facts about FirstPort that begin to answer the questions… but it can't be the whole story! If anyone else has any information, please post it here as part of your review.
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