Local Residential Block Management for Plymouth and the Surrounding Areas
Ensure the highest standards of maintenance, compliance and bookkeeping by choosing Plymouth Block Management to oversee your residential property. From gardens and lifts to walls and windows, our cost-effective management services provide outstanding satisfaction to you and your tenants. We also pay close attention to making sure your residential block meets all health and safety requirements, protecting you from complaints and legal issues.
For knowledgeable, professional and transparent management services for your residential block, contact us today.
Our Residential Block Management Services Include
- Regular site visits
- Upkeep and maintenance
- Insurance and claims
- Health and safety compliance
- Financial services
Choose Plymouth Block Management for Your Residential Block
We offer multiple block management packages tailored to suit any property and budget. Get in touch today to discuss your options for motivated, efficient residential block management.
What the Law Requires of a Managing Agent
Residential leasehold management is not a statutorily regulated profession in England. There is no licence to hold and no register to join, so the standard a leaseholder actually gets depends entirely on the agent they appoint and on the obligations written into the lease.
The duties themselves are statutory even where the agent is not. Service charges are governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985: section 19 limits recovery to costs reasonably incurred, section 20 sets the consultation thresholds for qualifying works and long-term agreements, and section 21 gives leaseholders the right to a summary of costs. Section 42 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 requires service charge money to be held on trust, in a separate account, for the contributing leaseholders.
Building safety adds a further layer. The Building Safety Act 2022 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 place duties on whoever is responsible for a building's fire safety, including record-keeping obligations that fall to the managing agent in practice.
How We Are Accountable
Because the sector is unregulated, accountability has to come from somewhere else. Plymouth Block Management is a member of The Property Ombudsman, which gives leaseholders an independent route of redress once our own complaints procedure is exhausted, and the company holds ISO 9001:2015 certification for its quality management system, certificate FS 685565, audited by BSI.
Client money is held in designated accounts, and our fee is a management fee: we take no commission on contractor work, so there is no incentive for us when a building spends more.
Fire Safety Duties in a Block of Flats
The common parts of a block of flats are covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, so every building needs a current fire risk assessment for its shared areas, whatever its height. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 add duties that scale with the building: in any block with two or more flats, residents must be given fire safety instructions and information about the importance of fire doors.
Above 11 metres, communal fire doors have to be checked every three months and flat entrance doors on a best-endeavours basis every year. Above 18 metres the building is a higher-risk building under the Building Safety Act 2022, with registration, a named accountable person and a safety case on top. We keep the evidence for each of these in the building's record, because an inspection that is not written down cannot be shown to have happened.
A Management Year, in Order
The service charge budget is set before the year begins and apportioned in line with the leases. Demands go out with the statutory summary of rights and obligations, and money is banked into the building's own client account. Through the year the building is inspected, repairs are raised and tracked, insurance is renewed and compliance checks fall due on their own dates.
At the end of the year the accounts are prepared against the budget, any balancing charge or credit is worked out lease by lease, and for a resident management company the directors receive what they need for the company's own filings and meeting. Where major works are coming, section 20 consultation is planned early enough that the programme is not held up by the notice periods.
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