SWA residential management - About Us

SWA has been established since 1996 and a major part of our work is assisting residents to gain control of their estates and then managing on their behalf. Our principle is a Chartered Surveyor and key staffs come from backgrounds of accounting and banking. Our busy Survey and Valuation work includes valuations for lease extensions or buying out the freehold under the Enfranchisement or Commonhold legislation.

All of the estates we manage at present are on behalf of residents, so expectations of property owners are always high. In our offices we have staff dedicated to estate management and many systems custom made to suit residential estate management.

We usually take on the role of Company Secretary to ensure the continuity of the estate management company as well as meeting Company House requirements of Annual Returns etc. We do not operate Clients accounts but prefer to use Bank accounts in the client's own Company name, but we do try to maintain zero bank charges and operate through on-line banking.

Where we have taken on estates that are already resident controlled we are more than happy to continue with elements such as contractors that occupiers are happy with but we maintain a list of tried contractors in most essential fields of service. Main contracts are usually tendered which gives an opportunity to monitor performance and costs as well as try new contractors.

Annual service charges estimates are always assessed on previous year's performance before budgets are placed before the estate representatives and wherever possible we propose a sinking fund to accumulate sufficient funds for major projects over longer periods and hopefully eliminate the need for unexpected large bills.

We do not need to be local to you to manage your estate, most day to day work is carried out from our offices in Bishops Stortford. We feel that the key to good management is staff not location but we are particularly well positioned via the M11 to reach most parts of London north of the Thames, Hertfordshire, Essex, North Kent, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and parts of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and South east London within an hour or less.

Our motto is, 'small enough to care, big enough to cope' although perhaps 'cope' is an understatement, but 'big enough to supply everything you need' is just a bit too long for a motto. We maintain dialogue with estate representatives and can provide all of the estate services including debt recovery and neighbour disputes. Active reporting of problems through pre-arranged systems is encouraged and we are constantly seeking opportunities for improvements for our managed estates.

Our current portfolio covers new and old, small and large buildings or estates with just communal external parts such as gardens and access roads. One estate covers nine large blocks in several acres of land and another spans a river. We are managing the renovation of a listed building, fighting car parking problems near town centres and stations and endless problems from inconsiderate sub-tenants......