Options for Handover

By Nige on July 24, 2021 at 9:14 am
Type: News Category: Handover
Tags: Bloor Homes | FirstPort | Management Company | Vale of White Horse District Council

This post covers the options for handover. Before looking through the options, consider the contrasting objectives of the various parties. This is our take on the drivers:

• Bloor: wants to get off site asap and transfer any remaining responsibilities to others as quickly as possible.
• Residents: want to avoid any unnecessary costs as long as possible, but if we have to spend money, we want control of that spend, i.e. we don’t want third parties spending our money without our ability to influence that spend.
• VWHDC: wants to close out the legal agreement cleanly – they provide sign off with all stakeholders happy, i.e. they won’t sign off if the residents are unhappy.

We laid out the following options:

Option 1 – Stick with the timetable as set out in the legal agreement

• Description: Handover to the MC takes place no earlier than Sep 2022; an EGM could be held around Sep/Oct 2022; Resident Directors would be elected at the same time.
• Pros: Not sure there are any specific pros with this default option.
• Cons: FirstPort has an opportunity to charge residents for another year of fees for doing nothing. Bloor retains responsibility for much longer than they hoped.

Option 2 – Handover to the MC could take place earlier, but Bloor would need to cover all costs that FirstPort proposes to pass on to residents to the end of the maintenance period

• Description: Handover to the MC takes place (perhaps) late 2021; an EGM could be held just after; Resident Directors would be elected at the same time.
• Pros: Residents take control earlier than in Option 1. Opportunity for Resident Directors to remove FirstPort as Estate Manager earlier than in Option 1. Bloor transfers responsibility earlier than in Option 1.
• Cons: Bloor would incur slightly more cost than in Option 1 due to the requirement for Bloor to cover FirstPort’s fees.

Option 3 – Bloor supports replacing FirstPort as the Estate Manager with a residents-managed MC, but Bloor would need to cover all costs incurred in managing the POS to the end of the maintenance period

• Description: An EGM could be held (perhaps) as early as Sep 2021; Resident Directors would be elected at the same time; Resident Directors would serve notice on FirstPort and take over the running of the MC from one month later.
• Pros: Residents take control earlier than in Option 1 and 2. Opportunity for us to remove FirstPort as Estate Manager earlier than in Option 1 and 2. Bloor transfers responsibility earlier than in Option 1 and 2.
• Cons: Bloor would incur more cost than in Option 1 but not as much as in Option 2 (FirstPort would be out of the picture); Resident Directors would be taking on a new challenge in managing the MC with little direct experience.

Bloor made a big thing about their commitment to home-owners to hand over the MC to an Estate Manager. We challenged whether there is any explicit commitment in this respect – we certainly cannot find any ref to this in the TP1.

We have asked Bloor to advise whether a residents’ petition indicating their desire to remove FirstPort as Estate Manager would have any impact on their consideration of Options 2 and 3.

Appreciate there’s a lot of detail in here, but if anyone has any thoughts on these options, whether they want to share those in public or private, I’d be more than interested in hearing from you.

Just to be clear the default is Option 1. No decision can be made to go with Option 2 or Option 3 (or any other option come to that) without explicit agreement through a vote from the residents.