Running Flats Management company: up-to-date book?

[wishIadafreehold]

The excellent 'Running a Flat Management Company' by Nigel Cox, is now out of print. Is there another book that sets out, in simple terms,the duties and the relationships of the various bodies involved in the management of a block?

[Gordon999]

Buy a copy of the RICS "Residential Management Code" from RICS Bookshop.
It cost about 20 pds.

[quarterday]

running a flat management company

try the ARMA list of publications.

Typically there will always be some maverick in a block who either for curmudgeonly tightfistedness, or pure sport will finds reason to criticise your efforts and allege that what you have done is wrong in some way.

And unfortunately there are so many little loopholes (with a ton of new legislation introduced in the last ten years) in the law and practice of block management that without a very significant amount of time taken up studying how to proceed at every step of the way you might leave yourself open to statutory challenge to be paid for moneys laid out.

For that reason, and with great reluctance, I would be bound to say that unless in the unlikely event your block is in absolutely A1 condition without any repairs of consequence likely to be needed for many many years, and especially if you are leaseholders who have gone to all the trouble of availing yourself of the right to take over management either by enfranchisement or RTM your best bet is likely to be putting the management back with exactly the sort of firm of Managing Agents whose fees you presumably tried to get away from in the first place!

[Gazou]

Buy a copy of the RICS "Residential Management Code" from RICS Bookshop.
It cost about 20 pds.

Looking on the RICS bookshop site I was not sure I identified that publication exactly (there are several such references) but I did come across this, enthusiactically rated twice with three stars: -

How To Manage Your Own Block of Flats

A Flat Owners Guide to Taking and Maintaining Control

Author: J Cumming & R Hickie

2nd Edition

This book is an indispensable item for the bookshelf of the busy flat management company director. It is also the essential reference work for other residents, professionals and students who need to get to grips with the nuts and bolts of block management.

So whether you run a large block and intend to appoint a managing agent and other professionals to do the job for you, or have taken on the management of a smaller block or house conversion and intend to adopt the 'hands on' approach, this book is for you.



College of Estate ManagementISBN: 9781904388319Item Code: 8197220 PagesPaperbackOct 2004Price: £26.50
http://www.ricsbooks.com/productInfo...roduct_id=8197

Any views on its merits?

[jeffrey]

Any views on its merits?

Edition dated October 2004, so not up-to-date enough for anyone safely to rely upon it.

[Gazou]

Edition dated October 2004, so not up-to-date enough for anyone safely to rely upon it.

A sound point Jeffery. Thanks.

It is very naughty of RICS to be pedalling out of date stock. I had always lived by the maxim "you can always trust a chartered surveyor in property matters" but it seems that has gone by the board as so much else in our troubled times.

[Gordon999]

http://www.ricsbooks.com/productInfo...roduct_id=7552

[Gazou]

http://www.ricsbooks.com/productInfo...roduct_id=7552

Thanks Gordon999. Looks to be a useful book - and from as recently as April 2009.