Management
At Walton Goodland we manage a portfolio of close to 200 commercial properties throughout Cumbria, Northumbria, and Southern Scotland. This comprises a mix of retail, office and industrial property as well as ground lease investments.
With around £20 million worth of investment property currently under management and an annual rent roll approaching £2 million we are the leading Property Managers in the region.
At Walton Goodland we offer a multi-disciplinary approach to property management acting as valuers, agents and account managers in providing a professional hands-on service to our clients who include private investors, property companies and institutional landlords. In addition, we provide a full building surveying service to support the management function.
Through our in-house Building Surveying Department, we are also able to undertake condition surveys of individual properties and portfolios and provide forward maintenance plans for the efficient maintenance of buildings including procuring and managing any building works.
What Type of Property do we Manage?
We manage all types of commercial property from individual buildings to entire estates. This includes everything from single shop units, warehouses, workshops, banks, restaurants, cafes and bars to multi-let Business Parks, City Centre offices and shopping parades to golf driving ranges.
Who do we Manage Commercial Property For?
Our clients range from charities to pension funds to experienced individual high net worth investors, property companies, housing associations, public companies, government and departmental bodies, landed estates, trust funds and ecclesiastical.
We undertake the following tasks as part of our management services for clients.
Rent
We offer a prompt and efficient accounting service on behalf of landlord clients, collecting rent, invoicing tenants on a monthly and quarterly basis, subject to their lease terms and preparing statements in readiness for forwarding funds to clients.
Insurance
We check and discuss our management clients’ policies with insurance brokers when approaching renewal to ensure the best and most competitive market rates are achieved. We are qualified to carry out insurance reinstatement valuations and regularly do so to ensure clients are insured for the correct sums and do not suffer any loss. We also lodge claims on behalf of clients dealing with brokers, insurers, loss adjustors and assessors.
Service Charge
Service charges form a substantial part of our management remit as we are engaged on a daily basis dealing with contractors involved in the general running and repair of commercial premises under our management. We are particularly experienced in dealing with complicated buildings in multiple occupation apportioning service charges amongst individual tenant’s subject to their lease terms. All in compliance with RICS Professional Statement – Service Charges in Commercial Property.
Arranging and administering maintenance contracts
Examples include periodic roof and gutter inspections, cleaning of communal parts of buildings, waste collection, lift maintenance, landscaping and gardening works, drain cleaning, fire alarm and security testing, CCTV and window cleaning to name but a few of the ongoing maintenance contracts which we set up and run on behalf of our clients.
Lease compliance
We are responsible for close to 200 tenants who rent commercial premises under the management of Walton Goodland. An essential part of our remit as property managers involves monitoring lease compliance to ensure tenants are meeting their leasehold covenants.
Statutory compliance
As property managers we are responsible for ensuring property under our management meets current regulatory compliance standards. This can include Fire Risk Assessments, electrical and gas safety certification and Energy Performance Certificates.
Rent reviews/lease renewal/sale and letting
As part of our management service we ensure that all lease dates relating to rent review, lease expiry and renewal are recorded on our database. Where managed properties become vacant, we automatically incorporate within our Property Agency system offering properties to let and where potential new investment acquisition opportunities arise, we feedback relevant details to clients.
Quarterly inspection – defect analysis
Our surveyors carry out quarterly inspections of all managed properties to ensure potential defects are picked up and dealt with before problems occur. Photographic inspection reports are prepared with illustrative comment and highlighting where works of repair or remediation may be required.
Liaising with contractors
We maintain a database of individual contractors and firms who we regularly call upon to carry out remedial works along with programmed repairs. We have developed an excellent working relationship with all of our approved contractors. Where problems are reported we endeavour to have a contractor on site later that day although typically this will be within a matter of minutes/hours regardless of whether urgent or otherwise.
Organising major and minor daily works contracts
We have the knowledge, skill and expertise throughout the company to plan and project manage all types of building works from minor repairs to full scale major restoration with examples available of a variety of such schemes.
Instigating planned maintenance programmes and budgeting for repairs
Our property management systems are constantly evolving. Our Building Surveying department offers clients a planned maintenance programme providing a schedule of works forecast over a fixed period of time, i.e. 10, 15, 25 years plus. Our proactive approach to maintenance and repair enables our clients to budget for future outgoings and expenditure.
Utility company management
Liaising with utility suppliers (i.e. electricity, gas, water, sewage) is becoming increasingly time consuming and frustrating and without an integral knowledge of the industry can be both daunting and potentially expensive for property owners.
We deal with utility services affecting the common parts of commercial buildings and communal buildings, regularly reading meters and assessing overall consumption before apportioning appropriately between parties. Where properties become vacant efficiently to negotiating new terms with a supplier, and thereby avoiding out of contract rates, is important. At Walton Goodland we are well versed in dealing with such matters.