r/Scotland • u/TimesandSundayTimes • 1d ago

Revealed: the great property factor scandal

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/revealed-homeowners-face-big-bills-from-factors-they-cant-hold-to-account-cqj888hc5?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=scotland&utm_medium=story&utm_content=branded

One year after Kristian Stevenson bought his first flat, the 34-year-old received an unexpected demand for £4,000.

The property factor who looks after the roof, garden and maintenance of his tenement flat in Cessnock, Glasgow, claimed that he was liable for a debt owed by somebody else in the building.

The letter from 91BC, which manages almost 4,430 properties, said: “Our role as factor is to facilitate communal works and charges relating to your building. We have exhausted our debt collection process and as a last resort, we must reapportion this debt to you.”

The £16,000 bill for the building, which Stevenson said was run up before he purchased the two-bed property, had never been mentioned in conveyancing and he was liable to pay £4,200. Nothing existed in the title deeds to suggest he would be culpable for somebody else’s debt. The factor said the deeds were outdated and he must pay the bill according to their written statement of service, which he said he did not receive until two years after moving into the property he bought for £180,000.

The statement of service did state that homeowners were jointly liable for debt, even if they did not cause this themselves, as is the case for most property factor contracts.

Stevenson, a freelance TV and film production co-ordinator, pays about £130 a month to 91BC and said the “absurdly high bill” included £6,000 in late payment fees and legal fees the property factor paid when chasing the other owner’s debt.

“If I was to pay this off it would wipe out any savings I’ve rebuilt,” he said. “A substantial bill without notice, consultation or even a real explanation is both unethical and a poor business strategy.

“Dealing with a massive sum of money like that puts significantly a lot of pressure on me.”

There are hundreds of thousands of property owners like Stevenson across Scotland collectively paying tens of millions of pounds each year to factors who are almost impossible to hold to account.

A long multi-step complaints process, which requires homeowners to compile evidence and documents and often take legal advice, has been blamed for poor regulation and accountability of property factors.

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u/Apprehensive-Mix7192 1d ago

My son’s factor is pretty useless. The building needs a new roof and guttering cleaned as water comes in his top floor flat. The factor put it to a vote!!!! Obviously the people one the ground floor don’t care so out of nine properties only 3 voted yes. It does state in the deeds that everyone should be liable for common repairs but the factor won’t push that point. So nothing is done and there is still water ingress. Apparently the council can’t intervene unless the roof is actually falling down. Ross and Liddell is the factor.

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u/Illustrious-Welder84 1d ago

Unfortunately that is not the factors fault. They are there to facilitate things, they cannot force the owners to act. I've been the surveyor in jobs like that and we can only help the factor communicate why it is important. Your son would be best to talk to the others that are objecting.

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u/Apprehensive-Mix7192 1d ago

I guess but if it is on the deeds that you are required to pay for repairs and such like why put it to a vote?

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u/ElJaffacakeo22 1d ago

So the Factor has to take the risk in underwriting repairs for a block of flats they do not own?

This classic lack of understanding is why people give Factors such a bad name. If owners are not willing to pay their share, that's on them.

It is the responsibility of the co-proprietors to uphold the conditions of their deeds, not the factor.

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u/Illustrious-Welder84 1d ago

I really feel people don't understand this exact point. If there's an issue, the owners need to agree among themselves first the way forward. Most of the successful jobs do so because there's a united way forward agreed before the factors are even involved. The worst jobs thankfully never go ahead, but generally are meetings attended by the two top floor or bottom floor flats (depending where the issue is) and you never meet any other owners because they don't care

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u/Illustrious-Welder84 1d ago

Because people can argue until the cows come home if work is really required, or even that work is required, but what's planned is excessive, or not competitive etc.

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u/Apprehensive-Mix7192 1d ago

Ahh thank you makes sense x

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u/mata_dan 1d ago

But the law itself says all properties under the roof where works need done are liable, end of.

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u/Illustrious-Welder84 1d ago

But people can argue until the cows come home if work actually needs done.

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u/mata_dan 1d ago edited 1d ago

They can try but it's just factual and has a basis already in the industry through qualified licensed surveyors, and in the courts. I've been right through the weeds on this twice from landlords who never did any maintenance at all whatsoever, e.g. not repointing a non double insulated exterior wall within a maximum of 15 years is automatically incorrect end of no discussion and the industry has standards on this going back many many decades - if it's less than 10 years and some people argue it needs done and some argue otherwise there could be a grey area until a surveyor says nope decision made.

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u/Illustrious-Welder84 1d ago

Are you saying a traditional external wall needs to be repointed every 15 years? That is such crap like I've never heard

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u/mata_dan 1d ago

It was from a document from a Scottish tenements management association of some sorts, it had a lot of other details - properly about the structural elements and fire safety details during maintenance and standards of closes and everything including case studies and technical materials details etc. - and that was about the only one I could remember decently, I might try to find it though similar things aren't hard to look up. I had to quote it in the past to get my letting agency to stop being idiots.