Become a Director and make a difference to your community.
If you decide this is something you'd like to apply for we recommend that you read the full Director document. You can request this using the form below:
As a Director, we're here to support you as there are certain annual tasks that have to be undertaken as an officer of the company:
Apart from the Annual General Meeting, to which all Directors should make every effort to attend, most Boards of Directors are encouraged to meet at least twice a year. One of those meetings would be with the Managing Agent to formulate the following year’s budget, and the other meeting to discuss ongoing issues. Many larger developments with active Boards will meet every eight to ten weeks.Being a member of a Board of Directors normally means you are the first people to discuss and approve or reject potential costly items of maintenance or repair.
You must always remember that it is property owners’ money you are dealing with, including your own, and even though there may be a desire to keep service charge bills down, you as a Board are responsible under the lease/TP1, for maintaining the property. Failure to do so could result in difficulties further down the line.
Your Property Manager should normally have the best financial overview of the property as they are aware of cash flow and the likely expenditure, including cyclical major works due under the terms of the lease/TP1, and their input at any budget meeting should be listened to carefully. If a reserve fund is allowed for in the lease/TP1, it should be utilised to its maximum potential.
The Board Meeting provides a forum for input from the Managing Agents and your fellow Directors, to receive updates on outstanding issues, and to discuss possible solutions.
There may be times when other property owners approach you with matters of concern, when they learn that you are a Director. This clearly has both benefits and drawbacks. The benefit being that you become aware early of certain issues, and can decide whether it is a matter for the Board, or should be handled by the Managing Agents. It also enables you to reassure the property owners that their problem will be looked at.
Our experience as a Managing Agent, can cover small units, up to vast developments of many hundreds of units. This allows us to take a large part of the workload away from the Directors, and includes services such as: collecting service charges, chasing up arrears, providing maintenance services such as cleaning and gardening to a development, organising repairs, instigating health and safety inspections, and, following consultation with the Board, acting on recommendations.
In addition, we provide the Board with quarterly financial reports for information, and ensure that any potential cash flow issues are flagged up well in advance. A budget meeting may be held annually.
The designated Property Manager will advise the Directors on projects such as internal or external decorations, many of which have the timescale determined by the lease/TP1. Once agreed, we will oversee the sending out of all legally required notices, producing specifications, obtaining estimates for works and overseeing the project to completion.
Where authorised, we can act as Company Secretary, which involves filing of all documentation including accounts at Companies House, handling paperwork on behalf of the Company when flats are bought and sold, providing AGM notices, and minutes from such meetings.
We can arrange all the appropriate insurances that are required. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Where Crabtree are appointed as the Managing Agent, we will appoint a designated Property Manager and Client Relationship Manager to the development, and those individuals will report directly to the Board of Directors either at a Board meeting, by telephone or email correspondence. They will build a relationship with Directors, property owners, residents, and will encourage them to be the eyes and ears of the property to report issues. Two-way communication is the key to a successful relationship with residents, and newsletters with up-to-date information are both helpful and well received. We will carry out site visits to ensure that authorised works have been completed correctly and to pick up on any issues.
The above is intended to take away much of the difficult work associated with running a property, leaving the Directors to concentrate on general matters and priorities of expenditure within the budget.
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Crabtree PM Limited is an Appointed Representative of St Giles Insurance and Finance Services Limited, Midway Insurance Service Limited, and Ferndale Insurance Services Limited. All three of these companies are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, with registration numbers of 311167, 303945 and 308161 respectively.
