Management Companies Thread

Eoin

Howyeh,

As lastsaturday has pointed out to me, it looks like our Management Companies Thread has disappeared for some strange reason. I managed to dig out a link to it, but I don't have permissions to access it so it looks like it has either been moved to a private forum, or locked altogether.

Does anyone know if there were any posts on it that may have caused it to be deleted or moved by one of the site admins? I have asked that someone have a look at it, but no response so far.

thanks,

Eoin

birdwatcher

Hi guys
Just to let you know, at the residents meeting last night, one of the, (oooops! I can't call them what I want to call them....it could be libelous...) from O'Farrells said that he had the thread on the managment companies removed from the site as, in his words "someone had posted disgusting and defamatory remarks" about O'Farrells. Apparently he's taken legal action against the woman involved.
Nice to see that O'Farrells are covering their own asses while at the same time FAILING miserably to answer questions relating to the Managment charges.
A good turn out last night for the meeting. It's encouraging to see so many people take an interest in the upkeep of Charlesland Court. Hopefully with the newly formed residents committee, we can keep the pressure on our property managers (And I use the term lightly) to provide transparency on all issues....especially the financial implications!!
Am I right in thinking that there were very few straight answers given last night, and that the meeting ended rather abruptly??????

In the interests of covering my own ass here, I'd just like to add that the comments posted above represent my own views, and not those of any group or committee.
If anyone else thought that the "indivividuals" at the top table last night were as helpful as an golf club on a tennis court, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.:eek:

SPS

Couldn't make it last night but very interested to know what went on, will there be minutes sent around the court with a list of who is on the committee? Is it true that we can fire the management company by majority vote if we're not happy with their services, sounds like they've got peoples backs up already, not a good start.

Eoin

birdwatcher wrote:

Hi guys
Just to let you know, at the residents meeting last night, one of the, (oooops! I can't call them what I want to call them....it could be libelous...) from O'Farrells said that he had the thread on the managment companies removed from the site as, in his words "someone had posted disgusting and defamatory remarks" about O'Farrells. Apparently he's taken legal action against the woman involved.

Yikes, so that's what happened to the thread. I'm somewhat surprised the site admins didn't tell us there was a serious complaint and that we should watch what we say! It is interesting how much exposure this forum seems to have out there.

I suppose from this point that it should go without saying that only points of fact should be posted about the management companies or there will just be a repeat of this again.

SPS, with regards to firing the management company: From what I have read, you can only do this when the developers give over "control" of the management committee of the estate. Residents can then vote themselves onto the committee, and the committee can then hire and fire the management company.

However, the developers only have to give over control when they have completed development and sold the last house. My understanding is that by holding onto one apartment for rent will effectively give them permanent control of the management committee until they sell that apartment. For all I know, even leasing out a house to the creche or the montesorri (sp?) may also let them hang on, therefore not giving residents control for as long as they want.

birdwatcher

Eoin
Apparently the O'Farrells took exception to one particular entry from one of our little gang.
It seems thone lady had a go at O'Farrells inability to manage and used the specific instance of a development in Cabinteely.
I would have thought that the MODs had the ability to remove a single post as opposed to removing the entire thread.
There was a lot of decent information on the thread, and it seems like sheer censorship that we cannot have it re-instated.
I've got to say that when this was brought up last night at the AGM (By O'Farrells), it was promptly shot down as being entirely irrelevant and inappropriate.

<snipped by eoin_s for the time being - sorry!>
The tone of the girl who chaired the meeting last night struck me as being entirely condescending. She couldn't wait to end the meeting and get out of there.

I've had my rant.......:mad: :mad: :mad:

Eoin

birdwatcher wrote:

Eoin
Apparently the O'Farrells took exception to one particular entry from one of our little gang.
It seems thone lady had a go at O'Farrells inability to manage and used the specific instance of a development in Cabinteely.
I would have thought that the MODs had the ability to remove a single post as opposed to removing the entire thread.
There was a lot of decent information on the thread, and it seems like sheer censorship that we cannot have it re-instated.
I've got to say that when this was brought up last night at the AGM (By O'Farrells), it was promptly shot down as being entirely irrelevant and inappropriate.

Hi there,

As this is a hosted forum (i.e. not hosted under another larger category), only I and the Site Admins have access to edit posts made here. As you can understand, the Admins have to look after the running of the entire site, and they would not have had time to look through a multiple page thread to find the offending post. Also, their priority is to ensure that boards.ie is not held liable for legal action so they would have just gotten rid of the thread altogether.

Unfortunately, they have not replied to any of the requests I made to see what exactly happened to the thread, so there is little I can do at this stage.

I'm afraid I had to snip part of the post you made, as it may lead to a repeat of the complaint, and this thread will go the same way as the last one

Eoin

birdwatcher

That's a bit strong Eoin.

The views I expressed are my own. It's a sad day for this thread if you are going to censor entries...
I think it's fair to say that if you were not at the meeting last night, you cannot offer an opinion as to its tone or content.

As such, your deliberate censorship is entirely biased and inappropriate, and contrary to your own rules, is not based on fact.
Will the next step be to ban me from using the thread altogether????

Eoin

birdwatcher wrote:

That's a bit strong Eoin.

The views I expressed are my own. It's a sad day for this thread if you are going to censor entries...
I think it's fair to say that if you were not at the meeting last night, you cannot offer an opinion as to its tone or content.

As such, your deliberate censorship is entirely biased and inappropriate, and contrary to your own rules, is not based on fact.
Will the next step be to ban me from using the thread altogether????

I have said this before on other occasions: this forum is hosted by boards.ie, and we must follow their rules first - not ours. It seems that our entire thread was removed because of one seemingly innocent comment, and you said that legal proceedings are occuring because of this one comment.

The one comment I edited was not based on fact, but was an emotive one - and I would rather see that being edited now, rather than this entire thread being removed as happened to the last one. Also, the comment I edited was not related to the meeting last night, so my lack of presence there is not relevant.

If you look around other forums here on boards.ie, you will see that posts being edited is not unique to this forum at all - I try and avoid it if at all possible. Many posts here are on shaky legal ground (file sharing posts etc), and it looks like this could be another one.

As I said earlier, I have not received any response from the Administrators on the offending post - I only knew about the particular problem because you let us know. If I can get some clarification on what constitutes an inappropriate post, then I will post that here, but in the meantime I don't think we can take that risk as a precedent has already been set by the other thread being removed.

Eoin

For the record, I totally agree that you should be able to express your opinions on what you think of the management companies - this sort of thing happens all the time about other companies in a load of other forums - particularly the Consumer Issues one. I really would have preferred to see a more open exchange of views - as we have enjoyed to date.

The main problem is that a precedent has now been set where a specific company felt they needed to get in touch with the management of boards.ie and have the offending post(s) removed. I don't know if this is a first for boards.ie, but you can be very sure that the administrators take this sort of thing seriously. More posts in the same vein are likely to have the same reaction.

I will post another request in the Feedback forum here, and see if anyone can clarify what exactly can and can't be said. Until then though, I'm afraid that it is up to us to play it safe and not offer any potentially libellous statements.

Eoin

birdwatcher

Eoin

Sad to see I can no longer express an opinion....emotive or not.
I'm not going to waste time arguing what is quite obviously a topic which will have us going around in circles for days.

That'll be an end to my posts on this thread.

lastsaturday

hi folks,

i'm sorry i missed the meeting last night, but unfortunately, tuesday nights is college night..

i would like to join the mgmt commitee and was wondering if anyone has any contacts for the people who volunteered last night?

i believe the meeting was rather poorly facilitated and i think a more controlled approach might be of more benefit (if we could persuade them to meet us again?)

perhaps we could collate all the questions and queries the residents have and approach the mgmt co as a commitee to deal with them.

a maildrop might be the easiest method, esp for those off this forum?

regards,

G

LMC

Last night was madness, everyone arrived annoyed and it was mayhem! They were unprepared for the questions and had no answers.....I would definitely suggest another meeting before next year, thats for sure.

I did find out about this website though.........so not all bad

The Yipper

If the managment charges are based on square footage as the woman from the Managment Company suggested, why is ther such a difference in charges.
I live in a 3 bed duplex, and the figures just don't add up.
Maybe people could post the type of house they have, and the square footage involved.
The info I have at the moment is:
2 Bed apt (TYPE 2) - 752 sq ft
2 Bed apt (TYPE 7) - 956 sq ft
2 Bed townhouse (Type A) - 869 Sq Ft
3 Bed Duplex Apt (TYPE 4) - 986 sq ft
3 Bed Apartment (Type 9) - 1167 sq ft
4 Bed Duplex (TYPE 10) - 1292 Sq ft
4 Bed Duplex (TYPE 8) - 1486 Sq Ft
If this is accurate, and according to the selling agents, it is...why does the difference between a 2 bed townhouse (869 sq ft) and a 3 bed duplex (986 sq Ft), a difference of 117 sq ft, have a difference in charges of E785???

As far as I can see from the spreadsheet provided by the managment company, common charges should be divided equally, but this doesn't seem to have happened. I know someone at the meeting requested a breakdown of the figures and said that their explanation of charging by square footage wasn't good enough...but I'm wondering if anyone has done any thinking about this. I was talking to a guy at the end of the meeting who said he'd worked out what everyone should be paying, and that noone in a duplex or apartment should be paying more than 850 or something around this figure. Does anyone else know how he arrived at that figure, coz if thats the case, I think we are being ripped off. Lets get the thread moving with types of property AND square footage involved - then we can do our own homework.

Yip Yip Yip:mad:

LMC

The square footage was a stupid answer on her part (one of many) again no preparation done on their part before coming to the meeting but as far as Im aware the difference in payments is down to maintence, bin charges and insurance in the apts/duplexes but do not know how its work out exactly. It will be interesting to see if we ever get the breakdown that was asked for.....

The Yipper

just gone through the list of charges they gave us on the night of the meeting, and the bottom line is no clearer.
As far as I can see, the following charges should be shared EQUALLY among every household:
Lighting 15000
Management 18000
Company Audit 1400
Spine Road Contribution 22000
Company Secretarial 1200
Administration 920
Grounds Maintenance 16260
That's a total of 74780 divided by ALL houses (247 Houses)
Each house contributes: 303 Euro aprox - Remember this figure!!!

Also: the common charges that apply to houses only. This is only because there is a seperate column for duplexes beside these figures:
Contingency Fund 6000
Repairs 8000
Insurance 10500
Add these three up and we get 24500, divided by houses only (182) and each house stumps up an extra 135. Add this to the 3093 above and that should be 438 per house (2 & 3 Beds)

Then you take the costs for the Duplexes/apartments:
Contingency Fund: 12500
Repairs: 4000
Insurance: 9000
Waste Management: 10500
Total: 36000.
Divide by the number of Duplexes/Apartments (64) and that's 562.50 each.
Add that to the initial 303, and you get 865.50 each......
Clearer....no, I didn't think so.....does this make sense to anyone else.

I've a theory about their square footage story, but I don't want to get edited like birdwatcher did above.

Eoin

The Yipper wrote:

I've a theory about their square footage story, but I don't want to get edited like birdwatcher did above.

In case I need to explain that again:

While we may express opinions that our own, we are doing so on a medium that is not our own. In the original thread a comment that was made made has directly led to at least the threat of legal action, and as far as we know actual legal action. Any more comments like that, and this thread will also be removed by the site administrators.

I have asked the administrators to contribute to this thread on what exactly we can say here, and hopefully then we will have a clearer idea. Until then I have to err on the side of caution. Any problems with that, feel free to bring it up on the "Feedback" forum.

Eoin

The Yipper

Point taken Eoin_s
I'm not going to disagree with you.
I don't know what he wrote.

The Yipper

Point taken Eoin_s
I'm not going to disagree with you.
I don't know what he wrote.

The Yipper

Sorry bout that....don't know why it went through twice......damn twitching paws!!!:o

The Yipper

Anyone heard anything back from O'Farrells after the Charlesland COURTAGM on the 14th??

So much for their promise that they'd have the minutes etc...posted out to us....and I quote. "if not this week (weekending 19th), then certainly next week" (week ending 26th March)
Does anyone know if there's a possibility of getting onto the residents committee, and what exactly their function would be?


Maybe that sould have been, "if not this year, then certainly before 2010 ":rolleyes:

IMHO that's about par for the course:o

LMC

Received nothing in the post as I expected! If you contact O'Farrells they will take your name regarding joining the committee - they took about 7 names on the night but recommended we should have about 10. Again the contact details were supposed to be posted to us?!?!?!

L

Al & Katie

Hello all, what exactly are all of you paying in management fees? I just bought up in the crescent and they are charging me 1692 euro for the year.........seems a little high to me? Any one else in the crescent being charged similar?

Thanks

Eoin

Al & Katie wrote:

Hello all, what exactly are all of you paying in management fees? I just bought up in the crescent and they are charging me 1692 euro for the year.........seems a little high to me? Any one else in the crescent being charged similar?

Thanks

Ouch - that's probably at the upper end of the scale, though I think you may one of the first people in the Crescent to join on here. Are there lifts in your place? That can cause the management fee to rise an awful lot.

For comparison, a 2 bed apartment in the Grove is around €500 p.a.

Eoin

Al & Katie

WOW some differnce there! Thanks for the reply Eoin, There isn't even a lift in the crescent! Yeah thought it was steep alright! The estate agent told me it was 1500 but the contract says 1692! It seems steep even though the bus is included! But oh well, i'm rapidly learning buying an apartment is expensive in every sense!

Angel

The bus is included in all our management fees. I presume the cost is so high in the Crescent because of the electricity and upkeep of the common areas, like corridors and lobbies, etc. Very, very pricey though especially considering there's no lift. How many apartments x €1692?