Would welcome advice about taking on communal grounds maintenance

 


Hi all,

I am writing to ask for some advice from anyone with any relevant
experience or
for that matter from anyone who has any thoughts.

I moved in to my new build house three years ago. There are some
communal areas
which are maintained by a ground maintenance company. All
of the houses pay £100
each per month for this. There are 41 houses
between two small sites. The
communal grounds consists of one large area
of grass planted with some trees and
then 2/3 areas planted with shrubs
and very small areas of grass.

The ground maintenance company do the absolute minimum and less. I have
reluctantly paid the £100 but have done so with resentment. They arrive
and cut
the grass once a fortnight at best. They will walk past trees
that are lying at
angles because the tie backs have been snapped and
they take no pride in the
area....

I attended the yearly meeting with the company last year and made my
feelings
known but there has been no improvement. The grass was cut
yesterday but the
guys (3 of them) took 4 hrs to cut it as they had to
cut it three times as it
was so long (they had left it3-4 weeks). I know
a number of residents have not
paid due to the lack of maintenance.

Ok, so I keep a large garden at home, I like to think I keep it very
neat, cut
the lawn at least once a week and do all the edging and
maintain the beds and
shrubs. My gardening knowledge is relatively
limited, I mainly experiment at
home and plant what I like and maintain
it accordingly. I am not afraid of hard
work and I take pride in my
garden and enjoy it looking well.

Re the communal area I feel angry that it looks so bad. I believe it
could be
lovely if it was only maintained regularly. The work needed
involves a weekly
cut and the shrubs trimmed and weeding of the beds....
I estimate that 3-4 hrs
per week would have it lovely. This said because
it has not been maintained it
will take more work initially to get it
nice. For instance the grass quality is
very poor lots of weeds and moss
so it would need to be treated and fed so more
work to get it in order
but I believe when this is done it could then be well
maintained.
Clearly my motivations are because I live here and want it to look
well
and for my family and neighbours to enjoy.

Anyway to the point, I contacted the owner of the maintenance company, I
made my
points and asked him if he would consider paying a resident to
maintain the
area. He nearly snapped my hand off and was very positive
to the idea. This
concerned me a little. However on the face of it I can
see that the site must be
a headache for him as others are not paying
and he must have a number of
complaints to deal with. He said he would
send me the schedule they work to ie
how much alloted time to each task
and would welcome a quote from me.....

So here is where I need advice. I would like to explore this for the
above
reasons. I realise that I will not be able to retire on the money
I will bring
in however I don't want to be taken advantage of. I planned
on studying his
schedule closely and seeing if I felt this was
realistic. I considered that I
would need to factor for the use of my
equipment and maintenance of same. I will
also want to talk to him about
a budget or factor for feed/weedkiller/plants etc
etc... I am also
wondering if insurance becomes an issue, would I be covered by
their
insurance (at the meeting last year when we asked them how they spent
the
£4k fees they collected he made a big play of the public liability
insurance for
the area).

I also recognise that if I take this on I am likely to have additional
responsibilities ie residents approaching me to complain or raise
issues. I am
prepaired for this. I also believe that because I will
maintain the area well
this should not be a huge issue.
So does anyone have any views, experiences observations they could
share.




--

dprovan

 

dprovan wrote:


In my experience this is a no-win issue for you.

1. You will never make everyone happy, no matter how hard you work.

2. You and your neighbors will come to hate one another.  Their
dogs and children will run loose and ruin your efforts and it will
always be "someone else's fault, not MY kid/dog!"

3. They will expect much more from you than a faceless maintenance
company because you are there, onsite, to complain to.

Is this the only maintenance company in the area?  Our neighborhood
changes companies every 5 years or so if the service gets lax or the
price rises out of expectation.   It is in the contract that they come
to mow every 7 days, fertilize on a specific schedule, trim the
shrubbery twice a season as needed, spray the trees for pests, etc.

If you are set on this, you need to think it through and be very
specific about the services you are prepared/willing to provide, and it
needs to be in writing in a formal contract.

gloria p

 



So if you could get all the houses paying, that would be £4100/month.
Not bad, for mowing the lawn. Are there other maintenance companies, you
could approach for an estimate to do the work? If you and some of your
neighbors did the work, perhaps all the neighbors would sign a waiver
for the insurance, and promise not to sue, for any errors.

So as I see it,
You could do the work yourself, perhaps with a waiver on the
  insurance (with or without additional assistance from other
  neighbors).
You could ask that the price for the gardening be renegotiated
  by the company that is currently doing the work.
Or you could open it up to bids from other grounds maintenance
  companies.

If you do it yourself, there will undoubtedly be a learning curve as you
learn about the different plants that you are tending and the soils in
which they are planted. This can be learned from books, nurserymen, and
biologists at local institutions of higher learning.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/28/naomi_klein_the_real_crime_scene

 



I am a professional field inspector for a homeowner's reserve study
specialist in the State of Nevada USA.  We go to these home owner
associations, and take inventory of all these common areas, then digest the
information mathematically, and give the HOA a 30 year projection on how
much money to collect to cover the costs for all common items.

It sounds like you either do not have a board, or do not have a board who is
doing their job.  Who issues the checks to the landscaper?  Is it a person
or a board?  That is the person who should twist arms or fire them and hire
a competent service.  I do not know how your laws are structured.

4100 pounds a month is a LOT of money for landscaping, but that depends on
your landscaping.  It sounds like a lot to me.

You should be discussing this with the board, or the person in charge, as
you don't sound like you're getting your money's worth.

In the US, because of Florida precedent, some states have adopted the
practice of mandatory reserve studies to stop embezzlement, and to stop the
practice of awarding sweetheart contracts by making everything public.

You might want to contact someone in your area who governs such things if
there is one.  If not, I'd get to the bottom of things.  You can not be the
only one who's not happy.

Steve

visit my blog at http://cabgbypasssurgery.com

 


hi all

thanks for the replies, they are very helpful and have helped to develop
my
thoughts.

I am very sorry but a slight typing error has painted a very wrong
scneario. The
maintenance fee is £100 per year so £4100 not £41000




--
dprovan