Dissolving the OMC

M

MadSun

New Member
Messages
6
I am a director in the OMC comprising 240 houses and no apartments. We have very little common areas in the estate comprising of some parking spaces and very few small green areas. The big part of the OMC costs are agents' fees, insurance, and other miscellaneous costs.

We started to investigate the option of dissolving OMC as it brings very little benefit to the estate but costs all owners a money.

I did a lot of research and would like to engage the solicitor to assist in the process of dissolving OMC. Can you recommend any solicitor that would have experience with both dissolving companies and also OMCs?
 
do you not need to transfer the ownership of the common areas to someone before you can dissolve the OMC, who will maintain them if the OMC doesnt, who will maintain insurance, lighting etc?

with 240 units the costs cant be very high per unit?
 
All of the areas and lighting are already in charge of local authority.

We have maintenance contractor that picks the litter, cut the grass and trim shrubs, but as I mentioned before, these areas constitute a tiny part of the estate and residents do not see much of the benefit of that. As a result majority of the fees goes for agent's fee, etc. and there is a little benefit of having OMC at all.
 
Fire the managing agent, organise your own insurance directly, and list the "miscellaneous costs" to see other savings perhaps. Who are the directors of the OMC? Are they active? The issue of ownership of the common areas is not an easy one to resolve. Sell off the parking spaces to local residents?
 
mathepac said:
Fire the managing agent, organise your own insurance directly, and list the "miscellaneous costs" to see other savings perhaps. Who are the directors of the OMC? Are they active? The issue of ownership of the common areas is not an easy one to resolve. Sell off the parking spaces to local residents?
Click to expand...
We tried to fire the agent but they still came the cheapest and house owners did not agree to increase management fees to pay for other agent. We already went through all costs and sought quotations for numerous things outside of our agent and optimized all costs as far as possible. We have two active directors that do a lot of work but the end of the day owners complain that they pay the management fees but they do not see any results and I understand them as many of them have no common areas withing 50-60m from their houses and even if there is the area is like 3x2m with a bit of grass or few shrubs.

mathepac said:
Do the home-owners own their sites or are they leased from the OMC?
Click to expand...
I need to check it but each house has its own folio so I assume it is owned by the home-owner.
 
If the areas are already taken into charge by the local council then you are right it probably doesnt make sense to maintain an omc.
 
MadSun said:
We tried to fire the agent but they still came the cheapest and house owners did not agree to increase management fees to pay for other agent.
Click to expand...

Do you need an agent at all?

Sounds as if you don't.

But I suspect that you do need an OMC.
Brendan
 
When I say "fire" I mean "fire", not replace.

Send a circular to the members of the OMC telling them that to save money you (the directors) are going to fire the managing agent but to continue to do the work, you will need volunteers from the membership Then call an EGM asking for votes to fire the agent and do the work in-house or keep the agent. Circularise the members with their decision.
 
mathepac said:
When I say "fire" I mean "fire", not replace.

Send a circular to the members of the OMC telling them that to save money you (the directors) are going to fire the managing agent but to continue to do the work, you will need volunteers from the membership Then call an EGM asking for votes to fire the agent and do the work in-house or keep the agent. Circularise the members with their decision.
Click to expand...
We tried that but there are no volunteers to help and me and other director do not have time or expertise to run the OMC directly
 
MadSun said:
I need to check it but each house has its own folio so I assume it is owned by the home-owner.
Click to expand...

Are the folios L or F? check your own house as an example on landdirect website. The houses will be owned either freehold or leasehold

If the houses are L i.e. long leasehold then its effectively impossible to wind up the OMC because it would require agreement & consent of all and every leaseholder i.e. 240 and possibly their lenders as well.

You would also need to consider the covenants in the lease agreement of the lessor i.e. OMC, to the lessee's i.e. house owners and how these obligations would be met if the lessor failed to exist

You would also need to consider the planning conditions of the development, it may have stipulated the creation of the OMC but your mention of the estate being taken in charge means this would need to be carefully checked.

Have you got a headache yet? ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: mtp
The folios are F.

I have had a headache for a while now ;)

Can you recommend anybody that could provide a legal advise?
 
MadSun said:
We tried to fire the agent but they still came the cheapest and house owners did not agree to increase management fees to pay for other agent. We already went through all costs and sought quotations for numerous things outside of our agent and optimized all costs as far as possible. We have two active directors that do a lot of work but the end of the day owners complain that they pay the management fees but they do not see any results and I understand them as many of them have no common areas withing 50-60m from their houses and even if there is the area is like 3x2m with a bit of grass or few shrubs.


I need to check it but each house has its own folio so I assume it is owned by the home-owner.
Click to expand...
 
1 Under S18.6 of MUD act members of OMC (assuming they have it under arts of association) have no power to set any service charge until three year after the common areas transferred to the omc. If common areas not transferred no liability for s charge so directors resign man co stop filing annual returns, and the man agents will fade away but u need the omc. ?
2 Write to your local authority and request cert of taking in charge ( this is document solicitors who are acting for vendor of a house in a mud estate will request form the local authority for compliance with the conditions of the pp .) It will probably confirm the roads and services ABUTTING onto premises are taken in charge. But if the permission reserve public open spaces and the cert does not confirm the taking in charge of these spaces then estate not completed in accord with the PP. If u cant identify the public open spaces (no map of them on public record|) then u cant know common areas to be maintained by the omc.
4 The map of your house include drive which is private property.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top