Peter McCabe of Manchester property management specialists Clear Building Management, outlines some practical advice for residents on how to work with your management company to minimise problems with the lift.
Looking after the lift should be a priority area for your management company. As a minimum, we suggest residents should insist on the following:
A maintenance agreement
Check that your management company has the lift maintained regularly and that it is under a service agreement. To keep a cap on costs the annual maintenance agreement should cover all call outs and spare parts (although specialist parts and misuse is likely to be charged separately) and the agreement should be 24/7 – not just office hours.
Automated dialers
Mobile signals can be weak in lifts. Make sure that there is an automated dialer so that should the worse happen and there’s an entrapment the dialer can alert the maintenance company without delay.
Regular cleaning
The cleaners should always hoover the runners of the doors to prevent potential blockages that cause problems with the lift.
Advice for residents
Misuse such as jumping in the lift or repeatedly preventing the door from shutting can cause the lift to fail and, with call outs out of hours for misuse costing hundreds of pounds, these incidents can be easily avoided with common sense. Consider notices in the lift, including a reminder to remove any dropped items that may prevent the door operating as intended.
We have heard managing agents tell residents that if they don’t like the fact that “lifts will always break down” that they shouldn’t have bought the apartment! In fact we formed Clear Building Management because we witnessed first-hand the appalling service from other agents, including the only lift in the building being out of action for 20 months. We know how much this issue affects your daily life as a resident.
Any block manager worth their salt will understand the impact this issue has on the lives of residents and whilst 100% reliability is an unlikely situation everything possible should be done to get as close to that figure as possible and, where problems do occur, to alert residents early of any incidents and keep them updated (they might defer that monthly food shopping trip for example).
For a more detailed look at the consequences of unreliable lifts, click here to view a recent article from Flat Living.
If you are a leaseholder or RMC director looking for a fresh and transparent approach to property management then we would be very happy to speak to you.
Click here to contact Clear Building Management
Clear Building Management – managing agents with a difference.
Clear Building Management was founded on the principles of transparency, value and quality to deliver professional residential development management in a better, more inclusive way ensuring customers and their needs are at the heart of its operations.
In July 2016, we were awarded the Customer Service Excellence award by the Cabinet 
Office, making Clear Building Management the first private property management company to be recognised with this award.
