Butts Green
Butts Green is a modern development in Warrington with an emphasis on feature architecture and green space, incorporating a mix of both apartments and townhouses. We were introduced to Butts Green by an existing customer who was impressed by our performance and service at a similar development.
The story
The original developer of Butts Green completed the estate in stages, with each phase released at different times, one after the other. The phasing of the development was the catalyst for problems with the management of the estate. A managing agent was appointed upon completion of the first phase and budgets were planned around the requirements of that phase, but without taking into account the demands of future phases. By the time the last phase was completed the managing agent was running five service charge budgets and these had become unfit for purpose, leaving some owners to pay an unfair share of running costs whilst receiving little or no service themselves. This was clearly wrong and yet the managing agent did nothing to resolve the situation.
The solution
We conducted a root and branch review of the requirements of the Butts Green development, going back through all of the available information to understand where things had gone wrong. Once we had completed our investigations we were able to provide the owners with a full brief and offer guidance on the options available to them. This included raising lots of queries with the incumbent managing agent on behalf of owners to try and find answers. When these answers were not forthcoming we guided and supported the owners through the process of taking their case to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT). With Revolution’s help the owners were able to call an Annual General Meeting (AGM) and subsequently gained control over the development. This was despite a vigorous legal attempt by the previous agent to stop them – perhaps a good example of how not to treat customers!
