Management Co. - Commercial Premises

When a management company in a commercial dev. (4 block unit, a Spar, pub, 3 restaurants, pharmacy, off-licence, fitness centre, 2 health clinics) are failing in thier duty as set out in the lease, what options do the tenants have in forcing them to comply?

Essentially the landlord is an amatuer developer who neglects looking after the common areas, to the point that the lift to the 2 clinics is now out of order for 2 months, weeds in all common areas, graffiti in most common entrance halls/stairwells, teenagers hanging around outside and inside common areas, numerous break-ins to various units, external doors to internal common areas in poor condition etc etc.

Is the best avenue to get the tenants together and withold management fees? (The management co is run by the son of the landlord)

Are there implication for withholding rent also? (broadly standard lease in operation with all tenants)

Ideally, the current mgt co would be fired and replaced by an independent third party - seeing as the tenants foot the bill either way.

As a starting point I would suggest you try contacting the government body associated with this type of complaint http://www.odce.ie/ There has been a lot of complaints recently about management companies particularly in apartment schemes.

Good luck,

Matt

Marketing Ireland

The ODCE's regulatory role refers to the implementation and enforcement of company law. It does not extend to deciding whether a company is doing its work properly.

If you do a search on management companies you will bring up many threads on this with good info and advice.

In brief if you withhold fees you will be in breach of you lease and also if the management company has no money then no repairs,cleaning, etc can be done.

I suggest you find out when next AGM is to be held and bring up your issues or alternatively call an EGM.

Re lift we have a similar problem in our complex (Spar also) with lift constantly breaking and it turned out the lift was a residential one not a commercial and unable for such usage, something you could look into. As far as i remember the error was the company who installed it and they are paying to have a new lift put in.

ODCE deals with issues such as failing to do accounts, hold AGM's etc not poor management.

Good luck.

Is there much difference considering the fact that this is a commercial situation rather than residential

Thrifty1, thanks for the comments.

But there's no AGM/EGM or requirement for one, the tenants are not shareholders or members of the management company. They are merely clients receiving a bad service for the fees paid.

Incidentally the mgt co. was supposed to produce accounts to justify the mgt fee for both years 2005/2006 and have not yet done so.

The Landlord/mgt co are already in breach of the lease covenants by their inaction.

the best solution to sorting bad service is to withhold payment