If you are a director of a Resident Management Company, you hold an unpaid voluntary position that carries statutory duties, personal liability exposure, and fiduciary obligations to every leaseholder in your building. If you are a freeholder of a residential block, the legal framework governing your building has changed more in the last three years than in the previous thirty.
The two groups this page is written for are distinct in structure but face a broadly similar challenge: the operational and regulatory burden of managing a residential block has grown beyond what most non-professional directors can absorb alongside their professional and personal lives — and the consequences of falling short are no longer administrative inconveniences. They are civil penalties, tribunal proceedings, and in the most serious cases, criminal liability.
You were elected or co-opted onto the board of your Resident Management Company to represent the interests of leaseholders and ensure the building is managed properly.
The Building Safety Act 2022 has added a statutory layer to that responsibility that did not exist when most RMC structures were established. As a director of the RMC, you are — in most cases — part of the Accountable Person entity that the Act holds legally responsible for building safety. The duty cannot be voted away at an AGM.
If you own the freehold of a residential block — whether inherited, purchased as an investment, or retained following a development — you carry the obligations that sit with the freehold title.
That includes responsibility for the structure and exterior of the building, the communal areas, buildings insurance, and service charge administration.
Where your building meets the Higher-Risk Building threshold under the Building Safety Act, you are also subject to the full BSR regulatory regime.
Neither RMC directors nor freeholders need to carry the operational burden of these duties themselves. The law permits — and in practice strongly encourages — the appointment of a professional managing agent to execute the day-to-day work on behalf of the Accountable Person. The legal duty remains where statute places it. The operational management moves to us.
Railton-Meeks provides RMC freeholder support as a distinct service, separate from our residential lettings work and designed specifically around the statutory and governance obligations of residential blocks.
The most common misconception among newly appointed RMC directors is that their role is broadly administrative — arranging contractors, collecting service charges, holding an annual meeting. The legal reality is more demanding than that, and the Building Safety Act 2022 has made it materially more so.
The Act introduced the concept of the Accountable Person — the legal entity with statutory responsibility for managing building safety risks in higher-risk residential buildings. For most RMCs, the RMC company is the Accountable Person. That means the directors of the RMC are the individuals through whom those duties are discharged.
The obligations are not aspirational. They are enforceable, and the Building Safety Regulator — established within the Health and Safety Executive — has a full range of enforcement powers available to it, including improvement notices, prohibition notices, and criminal prosecution. Failing to register a higher-risk building with the Building Safety Regulator is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine on conviction. Failing to apply for a building assessment certificate once a building is registered carries equivalent criminal exposure. These are not penalties reserved for the most egregious cases — the BSR has been explicit that it intends active enforcement of the regime.
Higher-Risk Buildings are defined as residential buildings of seven storeys or more, or 18 metres or more in height, containing at least two dwellings. Many Manchester city-centre and Salford Quays buildings meet this threshold. If yours does, the full statutory framework applies — and it applies to the named individuals responsible for the building, not abstractly to a company.
Separate from the Building Safety Act regime, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 gives leaseholders the right to challenge the reasonableness of service charges at the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). A successful challenge does not only affect the disputed amount — it creates a precedent within the building, may trigger a managing agent review, and in serious cases can lead to the Tribunal appointing an entirely new manager for the building under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, removing the RMC’s management rights entirely.
The practical triggers for FTT applications are consistently the same: inadequate accounting transparency, poor communication around major works, service charge budgets that leaseholders regard as unjustified, and failure to consult properly under Section 20 of the 1985 Act before committing leaseholders to significant expenditure.
Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires RMCs and freeholders to carry out a formal consultation process before recovering from leaseholders — through the service charge — the cost of qualifying major works above £250 per leaseholder, or qualifying long-term agreements above £100 per leaseholder per year. Failure to follow the correct consultation procedure means the recoverable amount is capped at those statutory thresholds, regardless of what the works actually cost. On a building with 30 leaseholders undergoing significant roof or cladding works, the unrecoverable shortfall can run to hundreds of thousands of pounds. That shortfall falls on the RMC or freeholder, not the contractor.
Taken together — Building Safety Act duties, service charge obligations, Section 20 consultation requirements, and leaseholder dispute rights — RMC directors and freeholders are carrying a compliance burden that most professional organisations would dedicate specialist resource to managing. Most RMC boards do not have that resource. They have volunteers, goodwill, and a shared interest in their building being managed well.
Professional block management does not remove the statutory duty. What it does is ensure the operational execution of that duty is handled by qualified, experienced practitioners — leaving directors and freeholders with governance oversight rather than day-to-day operational exposure.
The scope below covers every area of statutory, financial, and operational responsibility that RMC directors and freeholders carry under current law. Nothing is parcelled off as an optional extra. If it is a duty the law places on the Accountable Person or the freeholder, it sits within our management.
The Building Safety Act 2022 is the most significant change to the legal framework governing residential blocks since the Defective Premises Act 1972. It did not create new good practice guidance. It created enforceable statutory duties with named individuals at their centre, a dedicated regulator with active enforcement powers, and a criminal liability framework that applies to the people responsible for buildings — not abstractly to buildings themselves.
For RMC directors and freeholders, understanding what the Act requires of you is not optional background reading. It is the starting point for every management decision you make about your building.
The Accountable Person is defined under the Building Safety Act 2022 as the person who holds a relevant interest in the common parts of a higher-risk building — typically the freeholder, or the RMC where leaseholders have exercised their Right to Manage or the RMC was established as part of the original development structure. Where a building has multiple Accountable Persons for different sections or parts, one is designated the Principal Accountable Person, who carries overarching coordination responsibility for the building’s safety case.
The critical point — which many RMC directors underestimate — is that the Accountable Person cannot delegate the legal duty. They can appoint a professional managing agent to carry out the operational work on their behalf. The statutory responsibility remains with the named entity.
Higher-Risk Buildings are defined under the Act as residential buildings of seven storeys or more, or 18 metres or more in height, containing at least two dwellings. The seven-storey and 18-metre thresholds are both relevant — a building need only meet one of them to fall within scope.
Many Manchester city-centre developments, Salford Quays apartment blocks, and MediaCityUK residential buildings meet this threshold. Smaller Victorian conversions across South Manchester typically do not. If you are uncertain whether your building is in scope, the answer is obtainable from the Building Safety Regulator’s registration portal — and if your building should be registered and is not, that omission is itself a criminal offence.
The Act imposes the following duties on every Accountable Person for a higher-risk building. These are not aspirational standards — they are enforceable legal requirements:
All higher-risk buildings were required to be registered with the BSR by 1 October 2023. Operating a higher-risk building that is not registered is a criminal offence. On summary conviction, the penalty is an unlimited fine. The Accountable Person — meaning the directors of the RMC or the freeholder — is personally exposed.
The Accountable Person must assess the building safety risks across the structure and external walls of the building and manage those risks through a documented Safety Case. This is a living document — it must be reviewed and updated when the building changes, when new information becomes available, or when the BSR directs a review.
The Safety Case Report is the formal submission of the building’s safety case to the Building Safety Regulator. The BSR can review it, request amendments, or issue a building assessment certificate. Failing to submit a Safety Case Report when directed to do so by the BSR carries criminal penalties.
The Accountable Person must produce and operate a documented strategy for engaging residents on safety matters. This must include a route for residents to raise safety concerns and a process for the Accountable Person to respond. The strategy is not a one-off document — it must be operated continuously and reviewed as circumstances change.
The Digital Golden Thread is the structured digital record of safety-critical information about the building. It must be maintained for the life of the building and must be accessible to the Accountable Person, the BSR, and residents. It encompasses design and construction information, fire safety strategy, structural assessments, materials specifications, maintenance and inspection records, and all changes made to the building over time.
Any safety occurrence that could cause significant risk to residents of the building or other buildings must be reported to the Building Safety Regulator within statutory timeframes. The Act specifies the categories of occurrence that trigger mandatory reporting — and failure to report when reporting is required is itself an enforcement trigger.
The Building Safety Regulator operates within the Health and Safety Executive and has a full range of enforcement tools available. These include improvement notices requiring specific remedial action within a defined timeframe, prohibition notices preventing occupation or use of part or all of a building, civil sanctions, and criminal prosecution. The BSR has been explicit in its published guidance that it regards active enforcement as central to its function — the regime was designed to be enforced, not merely to exist on the statute book.
Appointing Railton-Meeks as your professional managing agent does not transfer your Accountable Person status. What it does is ensure that every one of the six duties above is operationally managed by a qualified, experienced team — from Safety Case preparation through to Mandatory Occurrence Reporting — with documented evidence that the duty is being discharged. In any enforcement scenario, the quality and completeness of that documentation is the difference between a managed response and an undefended breach.
The Accountable Person who can demonstrate that they appointed a regulated, qualified professional agent and that the agent maintained complete records of compliance is in a materially different position from the director who managed the building informally and has no audit trail. That distinction is not a legal technicality. It is the point of professional block management.
Service charge administration is the area of block management that generates the most leaseholder disputes, the most First-Tier Tribunal applications, and the most reputational damage to RMC boards. It is also the area most frequently managed informally — with good intentions but without the statutory rigour the law now demands.
The legal framework governing service charges is not new, but its enforcement has tightened materially over the last five years. Understanding what the law requires — and where the exposure sits when it is not met — is the foundation of defensible service charge administration.
Service charges in residential leasehold buildings are governed primarily by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The key provisions are:
Section 18 defines a service charge as an amount payable by a tenant as part of or in addition to rent which is variable according to the relevant costs. The definition is broad — it captures most charges recovered through a residential lease — and the protections that follow apply to all charges within it.
Section 19 provides that service charges are only recoverable to the extent that the costs to which they relate are reasonably incurred and the works or services to which they relate are of a reasonable standard. Reasonableness is not a subjective test applied by the RMC or freeholder — it is an objective standard that the First-Tier Tribunal applies when leaseholders challenge charges. An RMC that cannot demonstrate the reasonableness of its expenditure, with documented evidence, is at material risk in any FTT application.
Section 21 gives leaseholders the right to request a written summary of costs incurred during an accounting period. The summary must be certified by a qualified accountant where the building contains more than four dwellings. Refusal or failure to provide the summary within one month of the request is a criminal offence.
Section 22 gives leaseholders the right to inspect accounts, receipts, and other documents relating to service charge expenditure. Again, refusal is a criminal offence. The practical implication is that every invoice, every contractor quote, and every expenditure decision needs to be documented and retrievable — not because leaseholders are hostile, but because the law guarantees them access.
Beyond the statutory framework, the RICS Service Charge Residential Management Code sets the professional standard for service charge administration in residential blocks. The Code is not legislation, but it is the benchmark the First-Tier Tribunal applies when assessing whether charges have been managed appropriately. Departure from the Code’s requirements — on budget transparency, accounting format, or reserve fund management — will be noted in any FTT proceeding.
The Code requires, among other things, that annual budgets are prepared and issued to leaseholders before the start of the service charge year, that year-end accounts are certified by an independent accountant where the lease requires it, and that reserve funds are held separately from operational accounts with transparent reporting of contributions, expenditure, and current balance.
The reserve fund — sometimes called the sinking fund — is the mechanism through which RMCs and freeholders accumulate capital for major future expenditure: roof replacements, lift refurbishments, external decorations, structural repairs. A well-managed reserve fund reduces the need for large one-off special levies on leaseholders when major works arise. An underfunded or poorly administered reserve fund creates exactly the conditions that generate Section 20 disputes and FTT applications.
The appropriate level of reserve fund contribution is a function of the building’s age, construction type, current condition, and anticipated expenditure profile over a 10-to-20-year horizon. It is not a number that can be set once and left unchanged. We advise on reserve fund levels annually as part of the budget cycle, with reference to the building’s maintenance history and any planned major works on the horizon.
Leaseholders have the statutory right to apply to the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to determine whether a service charge is payable and, if so, in what amount. The FTT is not a last resort for extreme cases — it is a readily accessible jurisdiction that leaseholders use regularly, and the costs regime in the FTT does not automatically favour the RMC or freeholder in the way a conventional court costs order might.
Beyond challenging individual charges, leaseholders can also apply to the FTT for the appointment of a manager under Section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. If the Tribunal is satisfied that the RMC or freeholder has failed to comply with any obligation under the lease or any relevant statutory obligation relating to the management of the building, it can appoint a new manager and remove the existing management structure entirely. This is not an obscure remedy — it is used where leaseholders have lost confidence in an RMC board that has managed the building without proper accounting, communication, or statutory compliance.
For every block under our management, we deliver:
An itemised annual service charge budget, issued to leaseholders before the start of the service charge year, with each line item justified and referenced to the building’s maintenance programme.
Quarterly or half-yearly statements — depending on the building’s lease terms and director preference — showing receipts against budget with variance commentary.
Year-end certified service charge accounts, prepared in accordance with the RICS Code and certified by an independent accountant where the lease requires certification.
A separately maintained and reported reserve fund account, with annual review of contribution levels against the building’s anticipated major expenditure.
Full documentation of all expenditure decisions, contractor instructions, and quote comparisons — maintained in a format that satisfies both Section 22 inspection rights and any FTT disclosure requirement.
The goal is not merely to avoid a successful FTT challenge. It is to administer the service charge in a way that builds rather than erodes leaseholder confidence — because leaseholders who trust the way their building is managed do not make FTT applications.
The Annual General Meeting is the formal governance mechanism through which an RMC discharges its accountability to leaseholders. It is also, in most blocks managed without professional support, the meeting that nobody quite prepares for properly, where the papers arrive late, where the minutes from the previous year have not been circulated, and where leaseholders with legitimate concerns about the building leave feeling that nothing will change.
That is not a neutral outcome. Leaseholders who feel unheard at AGMs become leaseholders who take advice about their statutory rights. And the statutory rights available to residential leaseholders — including the right to apply to the First-Tier Tribunal for the appointment of a new manager — are more accessible than most RMC directors realise.
Professional AGM management is not an administrative nicety. It is a meaningful component of the RMC’s defence against leaseholder challenge, and a direct signal to leaseholders that the building is being managed by people who take their obligations seriously.
Most residential leases include specific requirements around the AGM — notice periods, quorum requirements, the matters that must be covered, and the timeframe within which minutes must be circulated. These are not default rules that apply uniformly: they vary by lease, by building, and by the age of the documentation. Many RMC boards are managing to requirements they have not read carefully in years, if at all.
We review the lease documentation for every block at instruction stage and manage every AGM and director meeting to the specific requirements of that building’s lease — not to a generic template that may or may not be compliant. Notice periods are observed. Papers are prepared and circulated in advance. The agenda covers the matters the lease requires. Minutes are accurate, circulated promptly, and retained as part of the building’s governance record.
This is worth stating directly because it is not how most block management agencies operate. At most agencies, the named account manager who attends your AGM is whoever is available that week. At Railton-Meeks, Tara Meeks personally attends RMC director meetings and AGMs for every block under our management.
That commitment matters for two reasons. First, it means the person in the room with your directors and leaseholders is the Managing Director of the agency — MARLA-qualified, with twenty years of Manchester property management experience — not a junior account manager reading from notes. Second, it means strategic decisions about the building are made in the room, not referred upwards afterwards.
RMC directors who have previously worked with larger block management agencies will recognise what this is not: it is not a call centre relationship, a rotating contact list, or a situation where the person who attends your AGM does not know the history of your building. Every meeting Tara attends is preceded by a full review of the building’s open issues, budget position, maintenance programme, and any outstanding leaseholder correspondence.
AGMs are annual events. The governance of a well-managed block is continuous.
For every block under our management, we provide quarterly director check-in meetings — in person or by video call — to review the building’s operational position, update directors on any compliance matters, and give directors the information they need to discharge their statutory duties with confidence rather than anxiety.
Between check-ins, directors have direct access to Tara and the team. Not a ticketing system. Not a generic inbox. Direct contact with the people managing their building.
Following every meeting — AGM, quarterly check-in, or ad-hoc director meeting — we produce a circulated action log within five working days. It records every decision made, every action committed to, and every open item carried forward. This is not ceremonial documentation. It is the governance record that demonstrates the RMC is operating as a managed, accountable entity — which matters both to leaseholders and, in any dispute or enforcement scenario, to the First-Tier Tribunal.
Good block governance does not wait for the annual meeting to communicate with leaseholders. Leaseholders who receive regular, clear communication about their building — on maintenance plans, service charge budgets, insurance renewals, and any significant works — are leaseholders who arrive at the AGM informed rather than frustrated.
We issue scheduled communications to leaseholders at the key points in the management calendar: budget circulation before the service charge year, mid-year financial update, AGM notice and papers, post-AGM minutes, and notification of any major works or significant building events. These are not form letters. They are building-specific communications written to give leaseholders the information they are entitled to and that good governance requires them to have.
The practical effect — and this is consistently what we observe in blocks we take over from less structured management arrangements — is that leaseholder relations improve materially within the first twelve months. Not because the building suddenly becomes perfect, but because leaseholders can see that it is being managed by people who communicate proactively, account transparently, and attend every meeting they commit to.
Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is one of the most financially consequential statutory processes an RMC or freeholder will encounter, and one of the most frequently mishandled. The process exists to protect leaseholders from being committed to significant expenditure without prior consultation. The penalty for failing to follow it correctly falls entirely on the RMC or freeholder — not on the leaseholder, and not on the contractor who did the work.
Understanding what Section 20 requires, when it applies, and what happens when it is not followed correctly is not optional knowledge for anyone managing a residential block in 2026.
The consultation requirement is triggered in two circumstances:
Qualifying works — any works to a building or any other premises that the RMC or freeholder intends to carry out, where the costs attributable to any one leaseholder would exceed £250. This is a per-leaseholder threshold, not a total project cost threshold. On a building with 20 leaseholders, a project costing more than £5,000 in total will typically trigger the requirement. On a building with 50 leaseholders, the trigger point is £12,500.
Qualifying long-term agreements — any agreement entered into by the RMC or freeholder with a contractor or supplier for a term exceeding twelve months, where the costs attributable to any one leaseholder would exceed £100 per year. This captures ongoing maintenance contracts, lift service agreements, and communal cleaning or gardening arrangements where the annual cost exceeds the threshold.
Both thresholds are low by the standards of typical building maintenance costs. The practical reality is that most significant works on any residential block of meaningful size will trigger the Section 20 requirement — and many routine long-term agreements will too.
Section 20 consultation follows a prescribed statutory process. Departing from it — in sequence, in content, or in timeframe — risks the enforceability of the resulting service charge recovery. The three stages are:
The RMC or freeholder must serve a Notice of Intention on every leaseholder and any recognised tenants’ association, describing the proposed works, the reasons for them, and inviting observations and nominations of contractors within a period of at least 30 days. Observations received must be considered — not merely acknowledged. Where a leaseholder nominates a contractor, that contractor must be invited to tender unless there is a reasonable justification for not doing so.
At least two estimates must be obtained for the works — one from a contractor nominated by a leaseholder if a nomination was made. The estimates must be made available for inspection, and a further notice must be served on all leaseholders summarising the estimates and inviting further observations within a period of at least 30 days. The notice must include a statement of where the estimates can be inspected and the hours during which inspection is available.
RMC or freeholder proceeds with a contractor who did not submit the lowest estimate, a Notice of Reasons must be served explaining why. The reason must be genuine and documentable — not a post-hoc rationalisation. Where the lowest estimate is chosen, Stage 3 is not required, though the decision should still be documented.
The statutory cap on service charge recovery where the consultation process has not been followed correctly is £250 per leaseholder for qualifying works. The gap between that cap and the actual cost of the works is unrecoverable through the service charge — regardless of how reasonable the works were, how necessary they were, or how well the contractor performed.
The following examples illustrate the exposure at different building sizes. All figures are illustrative based on typical Manchester block maintenance costs.
10-unit building — external redecoration, total cost £18,000
Per leaseholder cost: £1,800. Recovery cap if Section 20 not followed: £250 per leaseholder, £2,500 total. Unrecoverable shortfall: £15,500. That shortfall must be met from the reserve fund, a director loan to the RMC, or written off entirely.
20-unit building — roof replacement, total cost £95,000
Per leaseholder cost: £4,750. Recovery cap if Section 20 not followed: £250 per leaseholder, £5,000 total. Unrecoverable shortfall: £90,000. On a building of this size, an unrecovered shortfall of this magnitude is an existential financial event for the RMC.
40-unit building — lift refurbishment, total cost £180,000
Per leaseholder cost: £4,500. Recovery cap if Section 20 not followed: £250 per leaseholder, £10,000 total. Unrecoverable shortfall: £170,000. At this scale, the directors of the RMC will face questions from leaseholders — and potentially from the First-Tier Tribunal — about how this situation arose and who is accountable for it.
The numbers are not edge cases. They are the realistic financial consequences of a procedural failure that is straightforward to avoid with professional management in place before the works begin.
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 permits the RMC or freeholder to apply to the First-Tier Tribunal for dispensation from the Section 20 consultation requirements where urgency makes the full process impractical — for example, where emergency structural works are required to make the building safe. Dispensation is granted at the Tribunal’s discretion and is not automatic. The application must demonstrate that the circumstances genuinely prevented compliance with the statutory timetable, and the Tribunal will consider whether leaseholders have suffered prejudice as a result.
Dispensation is not a retrospective remedy for a consultation that simply did not happen. It is a forward-looking application made before or during works where urgency is demonstrable. RMCs that have already carried out qualifying works without consultation and are now facing leaseholder challenge are in a materially different position — one that requires professional advice specific to those circumstances rather than a dispensation application.
We identify when the Section 20 threshold is triggered before any works are instructed — not after. Every qualifying works project is managed through all three stages of the statutory process with correctly drafted notices, compliant timeframes, and a documented audit trail. Where a leaseholder nominates a contractor, that nomination is handled correctly. Where the chosen contractor is not the lowest estimate, the Notice of Reasons is prepared and served.
The documentary record we maintain for every Section 20 process is sufficient to defend the RMC’s position in any FTT application — because the process was followed correctly and the evidence exists to demonstrate it.
For RMC directors who have carried out works in the past without a full Section 20 process, we are happy to review the specific circumstances and advise on the current exposure. That conversation is no-obligation and treated in confidence.
For a deeper treatment of Section 20 — including further worked examples, the dispensation application process, and what happens when consultation has already gone wrong — see our Knowledge Hub articles.
Most RMC boards that instruct Railton-Meeks are not starting from nothing. They are either moving from self-management — where directors have been handling the block themselves, often for years, with varying degrees of structure — or switching from another managing agent whose service has fallen below what the building and its leaseholders require.
Both transitions are manageable. Neither requires the building to experience disruption, service interruption, or a period of operational limbo between outgoing and incoming management. What they do require is a structured handover process, managed by the incoming agent, that captures everything the building needs to operate correctly from day one.
This section sets out what that process involves and what RMC directors should expect at each stage.
There is no wrong time to move to professional management, but there are better moments in the management calendar than others. The cleanest transition point is typically the start of a new service charge year — before the incoming budget has been set, so that the incoming agent can prepare and issue the budget under their own accounting structure from the outset. The second-cleanest transition point is immediately following the AGM, when the governance record for the year has been closed and the incoming agent can begin with a clean period.
Transitioning mid-service-charge-year is entirely possible and is sometimes the right decision where the situation in the building is urgent — whether because of a compliance failure, a breakdown in leaseholder relations, or an agent that has simply ceased to perform. We have managed mid-year transitions on a number of occasions and have the processes in place to handle them without disruption to leaseholders.
A complete block management handover involves the transfer of several distinct categories of information and financial control. We manage each category directly:
The outgoing agent is required to provide a reconciled statement of the service charge account and reserve fund at the handover date, together with bank statements covering the accounting period. We verify the reconciliation, identify any unresolved items, and establish the incoming account structure before any funds are transferred. Service charge funds and reserve funds are held in separate, designated client accounts from the point of transfer — not pooled with other clients’ funds.
This is typically the most variable element of any handover. A well-organised outgoing agent will maintain a complete building file: the lease portfolio, the buildings insurance schedule, the fire risk assessment, the asbestos management survey, the electrical installation condition report, the gas safety records, the lift examination certificates, the planned maintenance programme, and all contractor contact details and ongoing agreements. A poorly organised outgoing agent may have some of these, filed inconsistently, with others missing entirely.
We conduct a full documentation audit at handover, identify gaps, and set a programme for obtaining missing documents. Where a Higher-Risk Building is involved and the Digital Golden Thread has not been established by the outgoing agent, that becomes an immediate priority — not a deferred task.
Ongoing maintenance contracts, lift service agreements, communal cleaning arrangements, and utilities accounts all need to be reviewed, transferred or renegotiated at handover. We contact each supplier directly, notify them of the management change, and confirm the arrangements for ongoing service delivery. Where contracts are outside their renewal window and represent poor value, we flag them for tendering at the next appropriate opportunity.
We issue a formal introductory communication to all leaseholders at the point management transfers, introducing Railton-Meeks, providing direct contact details, and setting out how the building will be managed going forward. This communication is specifically designed to address the uncertainty that leaseholders often feel when management changes — and to replace that uncertainty with a clear picture of who is responsible for what from day one.
Most block management transitions complete within 60 days of instruction. The timeline runs broadly as follows:
In the first two weeks, we issue the formal instruction letter to the outgoing agent, notify all leaseholders of the impending change, request the full handover pack from the outgoing agent, and begin the documentation audit. We also conduct a physical inspection of the building at this stage — not a desk exercise.
Between weeks two and four, we receive and reconcile the service charge accounts, establish the new client account structure, contact all contractors and suppliers, and complete the documentation audit. Any compliance gaps identified during the documentation audit are flagged to the directors with a prioritised remediation plan.
Between weeks four and eight, the financial transfer is completed, the new management structure is fully operational, and the first director check-in meeting is held to brief the board on the building’s current position, any compliance issues identified, and the proposed management plan for the coming twelve months.
Where an RMC board has been self-managing, the handover process is somewhat different in character — there is no outgoing agent to liaise with, and the documentation position is often more fragmented. Directors who have been managing their building informally typically hold some records well and others not at all, and there is rarely a consolidated building file.
We treat self-managed transitions with a degree of additional care at the documentation audit stage, because the gaps are often more significant and the directors are often not aware of what is missing. Our approach is not to make directors feel that they have managed badly — most self-managing RMC boards have done their best with the information and resource available to them. Our approach is to establish a complete and accurate picture of where the building is, and to build from there.
The outcome in every case is the same: a building under professional management, with a complete documentation record, transparent service charge accounting, and directors who are no longer carrying the operational burden of compliance alongside their professional and personal lives.
RMC directors occasionally worry that terminating a management agreement will be confrontational or that the outgoing agent will obstruct the handover. In our experience, the vast majority of handovers are conducted professionally between agents. Where an outgoing agent is slow to respond or incomplete in what they provide, we manage that directly — it does not require director intervention. The service charge funds and reserve fund belong to the leaseholders, not the agent, and their transfer is not discretionary.
If you are currently in a management agreement and uncertain about your termination rights, we are happy to review the agreement terms before you serve notice — at no charge and with no obligation to instruct us.
Instructing a block managing agent is not the same decision as choosing a letting agent for a single property. The agency you appoint becomes operationally embedded in your building’s compliance framework, your service charge administration, your leaseholder relationships, and — where the Building Safety Act applies — the execution of your statutory duties as Accountable Person. The decision warrants the same rigour as any other significant procurement.
The sixth item on that list — Tara Meeks personally attending every AGM and director meeting — deserves a direct word for this audience specifically.
RMC directors are not making a one-off service purchase. You are appointing an agent who will be operationally embedded in your building for years. Block management agreements run for an initial term, but the relationship that works well continues long beyond it — through major works cycles, leaseholder changes, insurance renewals, and whatever the regulatory landscape looks like in three or five years’ time. The question of who will actually be in the room for your AGM in year four, and whether that person will know your building’s history without having to look it up before the meeting, is not a trivial one.
At most block management agencies, the honest answer to that question is: whoever is available, whoever has been assigned to your account that quarter, and whoever has had time to read the notes beforehand. At Railton-Meeks, the answer is Tara. Not a representative. Not a deputy. Not someone who will brief Tara afterwards. Tara attends every RMC director meeting and every AGM for every block under our management — and she arrives having reviewed your building’s open issues, budget position, maintenance programme, and any outstanding leaseholder matters before she walks through the door.
That commitment does not scale indefinitely, which is a deliberate choice. Railton-Meeks manages a defined portfolio of blocks precisely because the personal engagement model only works if the caseload allows it to. If you instruct us, you are not joining a queue. You are joining a managed portfolio where the level of director engagement we promise is the level of director engagement you receive.
The questions Manchester RMC directors and freeholders ask us before, and shortly after, instructing.
It depends on the nature of the failure and how the RMC is structured. As a director of a limited company RMC, your personal liability is generally limited to the extent of the company's obligations — the company itself is the Accountable Person under the Building Safety Act 2022, not you individually. However, company law imposes duties on directors to act in accordance with the company's legal obligations, and a director who actively ignores known compliance failures, misappropriates service charge funds, or makes decisions recklessly may face personal exposure beyond the corporate veil in serious cases.
The practical answer is that appointing a professional managing agent, maintaining proper records, and acting on compliance advice significantly reduces the risk profile for individual directors — because it demonstrates that the RMC was discharging its duties through a regulated, qualified professional rather than operating without oversight.
An RMC — Resident Management Company — is typically established by the developer at the point a leasehold development is created. Leaseholders are usually shareholders of the RMC, and the RMC holds the management responsibilities for the building under the terms of the leases. A Right to Manage company is a vehicle created by leaseholders after the fact, using their statutory right under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, to take over the management of their building from the freeholder without needing to prove fault.
Both structures result in leaseholders — through their elected directors — being responsible for managing the building. The statutory compliance obligations under the Building Safety Act and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 apply to both equally.
In most cases, self-managing RMC boards do not have a complete picture of their compliance position — not because they have been negligent, but because the compliance landscape has changed materially and the information about what is now required is not always accessible to non-specialists. The most reliable starting point is a structured compliance review covering: BSR registration status if the building is a Higher-Risk Building, fire risk assessment currency, asbestos management survey, EICR, service charge accounting against the RICS Code, Section 20 compliance on past major works, and the status of the building's insurance.
We are happy to conduct an initial review for self-managing RMCs as part of a no-obligation consultation. Contact Tara to arrange one.
Operating a higher-risk building that is not registered with the BSR is a criminal offence under the Building Safety Act 2022. The duty to register fell on Accountable Persons by 1 October 2023. If your building meets the Higher-Risk Building definition — seven storeys or more, or 18 metres or more in height, containing at least two dwellings — and is not registered, the position needs to be regularised as a matter of urgency. The BSR has enforcement powers including improvement notices, prohibition notices, and criminal prosecution, and has been explicit that it regards enforcement as central to the regime.
If you are uncertain about your building's registration status or whether it meets the HRB threshold, we can advise — and if registration is needed, we manage that process as part of the Accountable Person operational support we provide.
Leaseholders cannot directly instruct an RMC to dismiss its managing agent — the RMC board retains that decision. However, leaseholders have two significant indirect routes. First, they can apply to the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for the appointment of a manager under Section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, if they can demonstrate that the RMC has failed to comply with obligations under the lease or statutory requirements. If the Tribunal appoints a manager, it effectively removes the existing management structure and replaces it. Second, leaseholders who are shareholders of the RMC can use company law mechanisms — including calling a general meeting and passing resolutions — to change the composition of the board.
Neither route is straightforward or automatic, but both are real, and both are significantly more likely to be exercised where the building has been managed without transparency or proper compliance.
Through a structured, documented process that is proportionate to the circumstances. In the first instance, we contact the leaseholder directly to understand the reason for non-payment — in some cases there is a genuine query about the charge that can be resolved quickly. Where the non-payment is a dispute about the reasonableness of the charge, we document the position and, where appropriate, invite the leaseholder to seek a determination from the First-Tier Tribunal — because an FTT determination in the RMC's favour is significantly more enforceable than a voluntary payment.
Where the non-payment is without a substantive basis, we manage the arrears recovery process through the appropriate legal route, which for leasehold service charges typically means county court proceedings with the benefit of any forfeiture provisions in the lease.
We do not allow arrears to accumulate without action, and we report the position to the directors at every quarterly check-in.
This depends on the specific circumstances. Where the consultation was not carried out at all, the statutory cap — £250 per leaseholder for qualifying works — applies to the recovery through the service charge, regardless of when the works were completed. Where the consultation was partially carried out but with procedural errors, the position is more nuanced and may be arguable.
In either case, the starting point is an honest assessment of what was done, what the lease says, and what the leaseholders' response has been. If leaseholders have paid the charges without challenge and the limitation period for an FTT application has passed, the practical exposure may be lower than the theoretical one. If leaseholders are actively challenging the charges, the position needs professional advice promptly. We can review the circumstances as part of an initial consultation — contact Tara to discuss.
The Right to Manage is a statutory right under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 that allows qualifying leaseholders to take over the management of their building from the freeholder, without needing to prove any fault on the freeholder's part and without acquiring the freehold itself. Leaseholders exercise it by establishing a Right to Manage company, serving a formal claim notice on the freeholder, and — provided the qualifying conditions are met and the freeholder does not successfully challenge the claim — assuming management responsibility on the acquisition date.
As a freeholder, you cannot prevent a valid RTM claim, but you can ensure the transition is handled professionally and that your ongoing freeholder obligations — which do not disappear when management transfers — are clearly understood.
We support freeholders through RTM transitions and can continue to provide management services to the incoming RTM company if it wishes to appoint a professional agent.
Block management fees are calculated specifically for each building because the workload varies materially depending on building size, age, complexity, Higher-Risk Building status, the current state of the documentation, and the level of director engagement required. Fees are typically structured on a per-unit annual basis or as a flat annual fee, with clearly defined inclusions and any chargeable extras listed transparently at the outset. There are no hidden charges and no fees that appear mid-contract without prior agreement.
To provide a meaningful quote, we conduct a property visit and review the lease documentation — a quote produced without those two inputs is not a quote we are confident in, and we do not issue them. Contact Tara to arrange an initial visit.
The starting point is an honest assessment of the building's condition and its anticipated major expenditure over the next ten to twenty years. A building with no reserve fund is not automatically in crisis — the urgency depends on the age and condition of the fabric, the proximity of foreseeable major works, and the current financial position of the service charge account.
What a building without a reserve fund cannot do is absorb significant unplanned expenditure without either levying a special charge on leaseholders or compromising the quality of the works. We advise on reserve fund establishment as part of the first year's budget cycle for every building we take on without one — setting a contribution level that is proportionate, justifiable to leaseholders, and adequate for the building's realistic expenditure profile. It is one of the most practically valuable things professional management delivers to an RMC that has been self-managing without one.
If you are an RMC director or freeholder reading this page, you are almost certainly carrying a compliance and governance burden that has grown beyond what it was when your building was first established. The Building Safety Act has added statutory duties that did not exist five years ago. Service charge obligations have tightened. Leaseholder expectations — and leaseholder awareness of their rights — have increased. The cost of managing a block without professional support is no longer measured only in time. It is measured in personal liability exposure, in unrecoverable service charge costs, and in the leaseholder relationships that deteriorate when a building is managed without structure.
Railton-Meeks provides RMC freeholder support as a named, qualified, regulated service — not as an add-on to a residential lettings business. Every block we manage receives Tara’s personal involvement at every director meeting and AGM, transparent service charge administration built around the RICS Code, and operational management of every statutory duty the Accountable Person framework places on your building.
The first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Tara will review your building’s current position, identify any compliance gaps, and give you an honest picture of what professional management would involve — including the fee, the transition timeline, and what you should expect in the first twelve months.
