Being Reasonable

The laws around service charges are pretty clear and fairly easy to follow. While the purpose of this course is not to dive into them in great detail, you must be aware of them.

When it comes to actually setting costs the legislation all hinges on one word…

The law does not define what reasonable means and this is where disputes can arise as different stakeholders in a building may have different views on what reasonable is for their particular circumstance.

It isn’t easy to make sense of this as a property manager, you are often perfectly placed in between factions with different views on what reasonable means.

My advice is to always look at what is best for the building, it’s upkeep and the safety of its inhabitants. If you start to get into a habit of cutting costs or corners to appease people – whether they be leaseholders, developers or freeholders – you will find yourself in the firing line and the defence of trying to keep people happy is not one you will find in the legislation.