Taking back control of a Residents Management Company, a case study, pt 8

The general scheme of a homeowner-controlled estate is like this:

• the homeowners constitute the members of a Resident Management Company, and elect a board of directors
• that board of directors delegates responsibilities to a paid managing agent

So a group of, say, 300 homeowners would elect a smaller group of half a dozen or so, to hire and fire a single individual or firm. It basically can't work any other way. Yet the situation, though it recurs across the country, is constantly misrepresented:

• "if you're a homeowner you'd have to be a director"
• "if you're a director, you'd have to actually clean the corridors yourself rather than hiring a managing agent"

I'll return to those absurdities another time.

Suffice it only to say that the RMC we're looking at in this series of posts has got a problem, that also recurs across the country: the only director is also the person who serves as the managing agent: he reports to himself! he hires and fires *himself*!

Needless to say the quality of services provided is unacceptable to the residents, who are now trying to do something about it, by calling a general meeting of the RMC to elect additional directors who might outvote the existing director / managing agent.