A group of residents in the Island’s capital who were ‘empowered’ to come together to take ownership of their village should be an example to others.
That’s the view of a Douglas South MHK who has welcomed the sale of the freehold of the Saddle Mews complex.
Sarah Maltby drafted a Private Members Bill that will support leaseholders to buy their freeholds so they can manage their own properties without paying an off-Island company.
She says despite the legislation not being needed in this case it should help others in future:
Hello, it's Tessa, one of the news editors here at Manx Radio. Today we're talking freeholds. Imagine if you were paying management fees for a property you lived in to an off-island company and didn't feel that you were getting good value for money. Well, that's how many of the residents of Saddle Muse felt according to their MHK, but perhaps no more. The freehold of Saddle Muse has been bought by the Saddle Muse residents association after an approach by Four Seasons Healthcare. Sarah Mottby has described it as a true example of people power. The freehold for Saddle Muse has been managed by Four Seasons. Four Seasons is a company in the UK and very recently Four Seasons have decided to sell their freehold to Saddle Muse residents association, and this is very welcome news for the Resident Association, and they were probably pleased to be able to purchase that freehold, and now that is now owned by the residents who live within Saddle Muse. So on a practical basis, what does this mean for those residents? It means that the management fees that were previously being paid to Four Seasons are now collected by the Saddle Muse residents association, and they then are able to distribute those funds appropriately to fund maintenance programs within Saddle Muse. That wasn't happening before. The management fee was going off-balance to the three Four Seasons, and some of that money was being reinvested in the area. However, it was certainly not given good value for money to those residents who felt their management fee was not being spent in a way that they would have expected. When we talk about management fees, that's money that's going to, in this case, is going to the company, but there's what an expectation that it would be reinvested. So for things like insulation, upkeep of properties, is that where the money effectively perhaps should have been spent, but where the residents weren't seeing that it was spent, if that makes sense. Yeah, so about six years ago now, residents felt that they wanted to make a stand. They felt that their management fees were not being spent in the way that they expected, and so a committee was established. That committee became management company for the residents to be able to choose whether they wanted to continue to pay for their fees to the Four Seasons Company, or whether they wanted to put their management fees into this company, which was then owned by the Southern Muse Residents Association. Some residents decided to continue to do what they were doing traditionally with paying their management fees to Four Seasons, and the other residents decided to pay into this resident's association. It's that resident's association now, which has been given or has bought from Four Seasons, the freehold for the Southern Muse Village. So this is a really exciting development because it means that the residents who were formerly paying their money to Four Seasons for the management of the village will now be able to hopefully pay their money to the Southern Muse Residents Association, the company, that limited company, to be able to actually go on to better protect their asset and look after their village, whereas before they felt they had to pay their money to Four Seasons because that was what they were expected to do, but they weren't getting a good return on their money, whereas now because of the management company that's set up within the Southern Muse Residents Association, the money that's paid out is far more accountable. There's accounts that are ordered to do every year so all the residents can see exactly where the money's going, what it's been spent on, and they can obviously then factor in works such as boiler repairs, window repairs, door repairs, and that's been happening anyway for the residents who've been paying their money into the Southern Muse Residents Association. They've already been benefiting from this management of their management fees, but now the residents who were paying to Four Seasons will now also be able to benefit from this arrangement. There is 122 apartments down in Saddle Muse, so this is actually quite a big group of people that will be affected by this sale and by, as you say, that the positive things that could come from it. Yeah, absolutely. So in 2022, I was given leave to introduce a father house accused to bring forward a right to infringement private members bill. Now that was in order to be able to support the residents to buy the Freehold from the Four Seasons Company, and I've been working very actively with the residents to try to get that private members bill through in order for them to be able to apply that legislation to say, well, actually, we're not getting what we expected from our management fees. We want to bear the Freehold from Four Seasons, and this is one way to be to do it through a piece of legislation that would allow them to be able to do the rights of the franchise, so having worked very closely with the residents since 2022 on this, and then it just so happened that within the last few weeks, things have changed for Four Seasons, and they've approached the village to say, would you like to buy the Freehold? So this has been something that they've been campaigning for for a number of years, and they have got their act together, they have set up their own management company, they've done really well to be able to establish themselves, especially these are just volunteers, these are just residents that live in the area who have been empowered to come together as a committee and to take on this mammoth task, and I've been happy to be able to help and support them with the mechanisms I can help them with, which is legislation. Now that piece of legislation has been adopted now by the DOI, and that is still being progressed, and that will hopefully see that the months to come when they will introduce that as part of their housing legislation that I'm sure will be coming forward, but for my constituents right now, we don't know, we no longer need that piece of legislation because events have unfolded in a different way, it's been to lots of different meetings with the residents, and they feel that that's certainly helped to move things along, and certainly got the attention of four seasons when they knew that there was this piece of legislation being proposed and drafted up, but of course it's all power to the people here, and they've certainly done a great job at being able to organise themselves very professionally, and to be able to get themselves into a position where the freehold was basically offered to them for a tiny amount of money, and they obviously took that opportunity to take the management fees to the residents. I guess timing of the situation's helped there, but there was the will, wasn't there of the people to do something about it, which is really positive, so a good news story, hey? It really is a good news story, and it's something that when I was campaign and canvassing, people mentioned to me that they would really like to see this change, because they just felt like they were, you know, just not getting value for their money, they felt very distant to the company, they didn't feel that they would be in listen to, or that their concerns weren't being actioned, and that's why together this company was established by the committee to say, you know, we're actually going to do something about this, and obviously I've been very happy as a legislator to get involved, to be able to see what I can do to try and to change the provisions within the legislation, and getting that leave to introduce was certainly a great way to sort of kick things off to say, we're serious now, you know, we really do want this to be able to come together to be able to ensure that residents are paying their management fees, and they're getting what they expect from their management fees, and that's exactly now what's going to happen, so it's a great news story, and really pleased that the constituents are obviously pleased, and that they have regular public meetings where the residents who maybe haven't bought into this idea, and were still paying their management fees for their four seasons, they're obviously going to have questions, and those questions are very, very welcome by the committee, they want to be able to answer them, and they want to be able to help them to understand what they're actually going to get now, and the benefits of actually having residents owning their own freehold and their own village, and being looking after their own affairs, it's certainly a very good news story. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manxeradian Newscast, you are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this, and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] (gentle music) You
