The block manager who treats every pound as their own.
Independent block management for London right-to-manage companies, residents' associations, and organised leaseholder groups. Founded and run by a turnaround finance director of 15 years who has been an active RTM director since 2018.
What this means in practice
When a managing agent gets paid by the block, every line on the budget is somebody else's money. Most agents handle that responsibility carefully. A few do not, and the structural problem is that leaseholders bear all the cost of being wrong.
Proper Blocks treats every pound that flows through your service-charge account the way it would treat money leaving its own account. Invoices checked against the work done. Quotes compared against contracted scope. Debtors pursued proportionately. Reports filed on time. Audit trail visible to the leaseholder it concerns.
Financial diligence
Every supplier invoice checked against contracted scope, prior invoices, and a market comparator. Round numbers without breakdown get a query. Bank-detail changes get a fraud check before any payment leaves the account. Service-charge debtors pursued proportionately and firmly. A quarterly expenditure report to directors. Annual service-charge accounts always filed on time.
Turnaround experience
Most blocks that come to Proper Blocks have been on autopilot for years. We treat them as turnaround projects until the basics are right: compliance documents up to date, accounts reconciled to the lease, debtors brought back to a normal age profile, the contractor roster benchmarked against the market. Our founder built a career fixing companies that needed fixing across seven entities and several sectors; the discipline transfers cleanly to a London block.
Outstanding communication
A proprietary leaseholder portal logs every message, every action, every response, visible to the leaseholder it concerns. Director meetings minuted. Contractor visit requests scheduled through a transparent flow. Tenant and managing-agent registrations approved through a documented process. A periodic newsletter to approved stakeholders.
On the ground
We walk the block at least once a month, and as often as it needs. The monthly visit is arranged in advance so any director can walk it with us, and every quarter it doubles as the board meeting. Some problems only show up in person: the cracked downpipe, the propped-open fire door, the contractor who has quietly stopped turning up. A flat fee is never an excuse to run your building from a desk.
What we have taken on
- Asbestos identified mid £250k Section 20 works. Re-inspection overdue for over a decade when we took over. Surveys scoped, licensed remediation arranged, budget honestly reset with leaseholders, works completed safely.
- Fire Risk Assessment several months overdue, putting the directors at criminal risk. Commissioned a competent FRA within weeks of taking over. Directors taken out of unknowing liability under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, remediation actions placed on a tracked plan.
- Inherited service-charge debtors, some unpaid for ten years. Balances reviewed, recovery pursued proportionately, the block kept solvent through the period. Disputed line-items checked against the lease.
- Months of unanswered leaseholder correspondence. Absolute refusal from the previous agent to share more than the legally required minimum. Replaced with a portal that logs every message, every action, every response, visible to its leaseholder.
- A 60% insurance rise in two years. Challenged it, verified the rebuild value, then the suitability of the cover, and the appropriateness of the premium given those facts, securing a £37k (66%) discount. Every policy then consolidated through one independent broker, with terrorism and directors' and officers' cover added.
- Service charges set with no forecast behind them, and a reserve fund nobody had planned. Rebuilt the budget line by line off the leases and the live contracts, then forecast it out several years so the board can see the reserve, the major works and what each unit pays. Every total is reconciled before it goes near a demand.
- The lift's statutory safety examination had lapsed. Put an independent examiner back on it through the engineering insurer, so the firm inspecting the lift is never the firm paid to maintain it. Examination dates, service visits and every action arising sit on one register with a due date against each.
- Fly-tipping in the bin store, with no way of proving who left it. Cameras installed with the notice the law requires and footage held for 180 days. Where rubbish is dumped the cost goes to whoever left it, and parking moved onto number-plate recognition with permits for residents and their visitors.
Fees
One flat fee per unit per year.
Major works are administered at 5% of the works value, against the 10-15% large firms typically charge. Tribunal and legal preparation is £50 an hour, timesheeted and agreed with the board in advance. Every charge is set out in full on our fees page.
Who we work with
Residential and mixed-use blocks in London. Whatever the legal structure - right-to-manage, residents' association, or an organised leaseholder group - the principle is the same: we work for the people who live in the block.
Mixed-use blocks are welcome where residential floor area exceeds commercial, so a Right to Manage company can be secured under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. Where RTM is not the chosen route, we work directly with Residents' Associations or organised leaseholder groups on the same basis.
Founder
Howard Stone. Turnaround Finance Director of 15 years, revitalising companies in distress. Active RTM director since 2018. Career CFO across seven companies. Lives in London.
Common questions
What does a London block manager actually do?
A block manager runs the financial and operational side of a residential block: collects service charges, pays suppliers, manages statutory compliance (fire risk assessment, asbestos, gas, electrical, lifts, water hygiene), oversees major works under Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, handles correspondence with leaseholders and tenants, files annual service charge accounts. A good block manager spots problems early and protects the directors of the RTM company from regulatory exposure.
How are Proper Blocks fees different from a managed-agent firm?
Proper Blocks charges one flat fee per unit per year, plus a transparent 5% on major works (against the 10-15% large firms typically charge) and a few clearly-listed extras. The big managed-agent firms stack a management fee, an uplift on project work that is commonly 10% or more, and a string of per-document charges, so a leaseholder paying a low headline fee can pay substantially more across the year. We publish every charge in full.
How is RTM block management different from a freeholder-appointed agent?
A Right to Manage company is a leaseholder-controlled company that acquires the freeholder's management functions under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. The leaseholders elect directors, so management passes from the freeholder to the people who live there. Proper Blocks works for the RTM company, accountable to its leaseholder-elected board.
What if the block has commercial units as well as residential?
Proper Blocks works with mixed-use blocks where residential floor area exceeds commercial. The statutory Right to Manage threshold under the 2002 Act requires residential to be the majority. Commercial leaseholders pay into the same service-charge account on the proportions set by their leases.
Who is responsible if something goes wrong?
The RTM company is the contracting party for compliance and the directors are statutorily exposed. Proper Blocks carries professional indemnity insurance, but the responsibility chain ends with the RTM board. The job of the block manager is to keep directors out of unknowing liability and to surface anything that needs a board decision before it becomes an incident.
What is the smallest block Proper Blocks takes on?
There is no minimum block size. The fee is £350 per flat per year with a minimum of £3,600 a year for the block, because the work of running a building is much the same whatever its size: the accounts, the compliance calendar, the insurance, the consultations, and the board meetings do not shrink with the unit count. Below about ten flats, the minimum is what applies.