Worthing & District (Estate Management)

Under the Law of Agency an Agent owes fiduciary duties to its Client/Principal (which is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust requiring that Agent to be extremely loyal to its Client/Principal), including the duty to avoid conflicts of interest. Under Landlord and Tenant Law a Residential Block Manager’s Client/Principal is the Landlord, not any Leaseholder or Residents’ Association. The Agent managing the block on behalf of a Landlord is duty bound to manage in accordance with requirements of the Lease agreements appertaining to the block and of the recognised RICS Code so far as is applicable to the Agent’s management contract, or client instruction. These requirements and restrictions may not always suit the individual needs and requirements of some Leaseholders or Residents and may not always be understood by them. Indeed, in the Annual Report 2011 published by the Ombudsman Service:Property they stated "... Many leaseholders do not understand the limitations of what can and cannot be done without the consent or instruction of other people or what a managing agent has been contracted to do." In dealing with complaints it is often the case that the Leaseholder or Resident does not have a copy of their Lease/Tenancy Contract to refer to, or does not understand what they have agreed and what the Landlord/Agent must do. It is because of such misunderstandings that this type of unregulated forum is not appropriate at all to Block Managers/Agents and it is not appropriate to allow persons to post potentially defamatory comments without first having vetted the comments for accuracy and validity. This complainant (who has posted anonymously) complains about our not compromising with their Residents' Association. Despite our requests, Residents continue to misuse the common parts of this block in breach of the Lease requirements and of the fire and health and safety regulations and with no understanding, assistance or co-operation of the Residents' Association in this respect. As any worthy Landlord and Agent will know, there can be no compromise to the law, particularly on legal matters to do with people's safety. Matters are considered so serious at this block that the local Enforcing Authority has been notified and we await their order/instruction. With regards to the comment about demanding "huge sums of money", there is a legal requirement to carry out one-off fire precaution works which were previously subject to the statutory consultation procedures whereby Leaseholders can participate in the arrangements and nominate contractors of their choice to be included in the tender to obtain comparable estimates and which works are for the safety, protection and benefit of the block as a whole. It should also be noted that the complainant did not choose the more appropriate option and follow our published Complaints Handling Procedure which would have enabled the Ombudsman Service:Property to deal with the complaint fairly. If a Leaseholder or Resident believes they have a complaint then they should refrain from posting defamatory or slanderous comments to an unregulated forum such as this and should instead follow the procedures set out by the Ombudsman Service:Property to have their complaint dealt with in a fair and just manner.