The relationship between property managers and leaseholders has become increasingly strained in recent years, primarily due to heightened expectations, communication breakdowns, and the complexities of property management as a result of ever-increasing legislation. Leaseholders often feel neglected or inadequately informed, leading to dissatisfaction and mistrust. Meanwhile, property managers grapple with the challenges of maintaining transparency, ensuring timely responses, and efficiently handling a multitude of tasks.
With the Hackitt report identifying the need to rebuild public trust by creating a system where residents feel informed and included in discussions on safety, rather than a system where they are 'done to’ by others, it’s clear that change is overdue.
What’s more, with only 50% of residents satisfied with their building management company, according to recent research by the Health and Safety Executive, having the right technology in place can therefore play an important role in improving the property manager-leaseholder relationship.
Here are 5 ways in which technology can help:
Communicate with ease
Clear and timely communication can reduce misunderstandings, improve transparency, and foster trust and collaboration among leaseholders, ultimately contributing to a healthier leaseholder-property manager relationship.
One of the primary benefits using systems like Spike PMS is streamlined communication. With a direct way to communicate with their property managers, leaseholders can raise concerns, seek clarification, or request additional information.
From a property management perspective, property managers can share important updates, news, and announcements through the Spike app. Whether it's information about upcoming maintenance work, community events, or policy changes, leaseholders can stay informed.
What’s more, as all communication sent to a property, leaseholder or tenant is logged in Spike, property managers can see who’s opened and read the communication which forms an important part of the golden thread, and can be used as evidence of notification, in case of future disputes.
Convenient service charge payments
With 70% of leaseholders experiencing significant stress due to issues like unclear service charges and lack of responsible communication according to research by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHe), solutions like Spike PMS can provide transparent insights into financial transactions, enabling leaseholders to view detailed service charge statements and transaction histories, ensuring clarity and accountability in financial matters.
Additionally, Spike PMS offers secure payment where leaseholders can make service charge payments via an app, further enhancing transparency and convenience.
Simplify issue reporting
Recent research by the Health and Safety Executive, revealed that 4 in 10 residents think it’s difficult to raise an issue, whilst maintenance issues take up to 80% of a property managers time. Without a central system in place, leaseholders will use email, WhatsApp messages or text messages to report issues. Sporadic messages and using different channels make it challenging for property managers to keep track of what has been reported and run the risk of duplicating reports, making it even harder to keep leaseholder updated on the progress. Not to mention making it almost impossible to track against Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and performance metrics for response times.
What’s more, the Building Safety Act (BSA) 2022 mandates that property management companies must have an effective system in place for residents to report issues and submit feedback, with building safety complaints needing to be prioritised based on the level of risk involved rather than that date they were received.
Systems such as Spike PMS can streamline maintenance management by allowing residents to submit maintenance requests directly via a mobile app, and even attach photos so that staff can diagnose the fault ahead of time. What’s more, the system can flag any high priority issues based on the information that has been submitted.
This means that high-risk issues can be immediately flagged and directed to the relevant team members. Issues can also be automatically shared with external approved contractors to be investigated and resolved, with residents being informed and kept up to date on the progress.
Access to key documentation
Storing important documents and compliance-related information digitally and providing easy access to relevant information facilitates transparency and accountability in property management practices.
Spike PMS enables leaseholders to access crucial documents, including lease agreements, move-in checklists, and crucially the Resident Engagement Strategy (RES). These documents are readily available within the app, empowering leaseholders to view them whenever necessary. This transparency fosters clear communication and understanding.
What’s more, with Spike PMS, you can automate the sending of communication and documentation. For instance, when there is an update to the fire policy or RES, property managers can automatically send an update out to all residents via push notifications to resident phones and emails to review and acknowledge, ensuring that you remain compliant, and nothing gets missed.
Digital record-keeping
Spike PMS has been designed to be the single view for property managers, with integrations with third-party systems including finance, CRM, and maintenance management. By pulling in data from different systems and sources, this allows property managers to see all logged activities against a property, leaseholder and tenant, enabling property managers to quickly and efficiently find and access the information they need, whenever they need it. This means that property managers can spend less time digging through files and emails, and claw back some of that precious time to focus on other activities. As well as being able to have a central activity log, in case of future disputes.
Summary
By leveraging digital tools and platform like Spike PMS, property managers can enhance communication, streamline processes, and provide real-time updates, fostering a more harmonious and efficient relationship with leaseholders.
Jonny Wootten, Marketing Director at Spike
