FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

A Property Factor is the person or company responsible for managing and maintaining the common parts of a building, and any common grounds owned by two or more homeowners, looking after your property maintenance and essential repairs.

They must be registered and comply with a code of conduct, which sets out the minimum standards they have to meet.

A property factor has the responsibility to hire the best contractors, and ensure work is carried out legally, safely and to a high standard, and may also arrange block insurance on behalf of homeowners.

Factor fees consist of our monthly management fee in addition to the cost of jobs carried out by our contractors for property maintenance and repairs. 

Additional costs may also include insurance, building surveys, or the management of major works such as roof repairs.

Every building or development will have its own needs and issues in terms of property maintenance and repairs.

Regular review of your factor bills will tell you what work has been carried out, and what your apportionment of factor fees are. Comparing year on year is a useful indicator of how your factor fees are increasing.

We will help you switch to our services for free, in addition to working with you to reduce your ongoing costs.

For cost enquiries, please contact us. 

Speak to your neighbours – chances are they feel the same way.

 Check the “burdens” section in your title deeds (sheets) where you may find details about having a property factor.

If you can’t find this information in your deeds, check out the Tenement Management Scheme instead.

You will also need to check your current factors termination policy in their Ts&Cs.

Call a meeting of owners to take a vote – the number of attendees required may be specified in your deeds.

Get a majority vote – the number of votes required may be specified in your deeds.

Watch our video above or check out our article Property Factor – what you need to know.

If you need help with this, please contact us.

Self-factoring is where owners in a block of flats have decided to organise their own property maintenance and repairs instead of appointing a property factor, which saves owners the expense of management fees.

This is not for everyone, as it can be time consuming. However, it can work well if:

• There is an owners’ association in place to share tasks, manage funds and make decisions on the owners’ behalf.

• Bank accounts are in place to hold money for work being carried out.

• Professionals are used for surveying and carrying out more complex tasks.

• You have access to a network of trusted contractors.

Using an industry standard platform we provide helps to simplify the process.

Further details can be found about self-factoring in our article Property Factor – what you need to know.

If you’d like to know more, please contact us.

Yes, of course! If you start on a self-factor plan but decide its not for you, just let us know and we can easily switch you to our Bespoke Management plan, or vice versa. 

Alternatively, we can help you switch over to one of our plans from your existing factor. If you’d like to find out more, please contact us.

At a minimum, we carry out a site visit at time of appointment, if there are any issues with works, or if we are project managing major works.

Given we want to keep our monthly fees to a minimum and believe the owners and residents association are the best people to tell us about issues, we do not carry out regular site visits as part of our core service.

However, if owners prefer regular site visits, these can be arranged at a frequency that works for you. There would be a small additional charge which is dependent on time spent onsite.

We do not take kickbacks from contractors once a job is completed as we aim to minimise the cost of works to homeowners.

The Title Sheets or Title Deeds as they are more commonly known, contain all the important information about your land or property, including a section on Burdens.

Here you will find rules about your building which you must follow as a home owner and can include :

• how to appoint or dismiss a factor.

• how to call a meeting of owners and make decisions.

• what your voting rights are.

• what your share of costs are (apportionment).

You can download your Title Sheets from Registers of Scotland  for £3 + VAT.

Further details can be found in our article Property Factor – what you need to know.

A building survey highlights those areas that require attention that you may not be aware of yourselves. It will identify, prioritise, and give you an estimate of costs for works required over a 5 year period, in the form of a preventative maintenance plan. This will help you and your neighbours plan and budget for works required.

We work with surveyors who have experience of providing reports for all types of buildings, be that tenements or new builds, regardless of size.

We recommend this is carried out every 5 years.

Although your landlord has financial responsibility to cover factor fees, you can still have your say as to who your factor is.

Speak with your landlord regarding any issues in the first instance, but also speak with your neighbours about changing factor. 

If you do not have insurance, you will need to pay the cost of any damage to your property from your own funds, even if it is not your fault.

If there is a fire, then all flat owners in a block will be required to share the cost of rebuilding. You cannot rebuild just part of a block of flats so if one owner is uninsured, or underinsured, there are major problems for every owner.

In accordance with your deed of conditions, or the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004, owners will have an obligation to ensure that the building is adequately insured, be that having individual policies or a block policy.

If you live in a new build flat, this will likely be organised by your factor, otherwise you may have the option to have individual building insurance.

We would recommend block insurance however, it’s up to you and your neighbours to decide what is best for your building. 

Please contact us if you have any questions about this.

AboveBoard Homes does not charge owners commission for arranging building insurance as we want to minimise cost to homeowners. 

Any works that require a tendering process, project management of works and gathering of additional funds would be deemed major works e.g. roof repairs or cyclical painting works.

If you can’t find the answer to your question here, please contact us.