The Board of WS Property Management Ltd, at its meeting on 7th June 2022, set our charges for 2022-2023. These charges will apply from your August 2022 invoice.
Management Fee
Our Management Fee covers the cost of employing our staff and our overheads (office running costs, stationery, postage etc.). Following a review of WSPM’s organisational service delivery, WSPM’s Board met on 17 August 2021 and approved the appointment of a part-time factoring assistant to cover for holidays and to assist with general administration of the office. Anne Marie Bordone was appointed to the post in November 2021 and works on Wednesdays, Thursdays and on Friday morning.
As a result of this appointment, salary and pension costs have increased for the business. The Management Fee for residential properties will therefore rise to £45.00 per quarter from 1st April 2022. As VAT has to be applied for commercial owners, their management fee will be £54.00 per quarter (including VAT). Customers should note that no further inflationary increase was applied this year.
We recently carried out a benchmarking exercise with other factors operating in the Whiteinch area and WSPM’s management fee continues to be lower than most.
Insurance
Obtaining competitive quotes for block buildings insurance is becoming a challenge for housing associations, property factors and their brokers. There has been a reduction in the number of insurance companies offering block policies in recent years and those still in the market have been raising premiums in order to protect profit margins. This combined with the claims history for residential properties has led in an increase in premiums for 2022/2023 which will rise to £97.34 per annum. The premium will be charged out on your August 2022 invoice.
The claims history for our commercial customers is much better. We are therefore pleased to advise that the premium will reduce to £93.01 per annum.
Many private factors will charge an additional fee of 20% - 25% in addition to the policy premium as an administration fee. We would remind customers that WSPM does not charge an administration fee nor do we receive any commission for the insurance we provide i.e. we charge insurance out at cost.
Service Charges
As with buildings insurance, your service charges are charged out at cost. Charges are calculated over the whole estate – while some owners have more by way of landscaping, others will have more by way of close lighting, and by taking this whole estate approach we can achieve economies of scale and can keep staffing administration costs down.
Services provided in our tenement properties include:-
• Land maintenance
• Weekly close cleaning & monthly window cleaning
• Backcourt maintenance including weekly bulk uplift service
• Landlord’s electricity supply & close lighting maintenance
The cost of providing these services will rise from £66.80 per quarter to £69.14 per quarter from 1st April 2022. The cost of providing a land maintenance service at the Edzell development will increase from £30.84 to £31.92 per quarter from that date.
Despite increased costs, the rise in percentage terms is 3.51% which is substantially lower than the current CPI inflation rate of 7.90%.
Miscellaneous Other Charges
There has been no increase to our various administration fees this year. These charges are levied at property sales or where debtors require discharge documents for Registers of Scotland.
Our current charges are as follows:-
Charges Levied for Additional General Administration Work
Discharge documents for Inhibition or Notice of Liability for Costs - £35.00
Providing copy invoices - £3 per copy
Selling Agent Property Enquiry Prior To Sale and Preparation of Final Account
First approach from Solicitor more than 8 working days before settlement – £60.
8 working days or less notice (express service) – £90.
Providing development / warranty documents – £116.10.
Charge for work associated with non-notification of ownership change – £116.10.