ARTICLE: Selecting Third Party Vendors for your Communal Apartment Building.
In addition to selecting a property manager (if required) by a full tender process (covered in ‘The Ultimate Committee Handbook’), the Management Committee may need to use third party vendors.
Common types of vendor are: Lawyers, accountants & auditors, insurance providers, specialist advisers, debt collection agencies, pool technicians, cleaning agencies, garden maintenance and landscapers, lift maintenance providers, specialist maintenance providers (major maintenance works), small works/handyman services, sewerage removal and bio-plant servicing
Note: If these services and vendors are provided as part of your agreement with a property manager, then the majority of the work in selecting a vendor will be done by them, as they are ultimately responsible for any vendors they contract and to ensure that all contractual and legal requirements are met.
Selection of the Vendor
Unless dealing with a large-scale building or resort, the Management Committee’s selection of a vendor does not require any advanced formal tender process.
However, there should be a process to ensure that the vendor is suitable, and the best value for money. This does not always mean the cheapest quote, as you can get what you pay for.
General good practice is to request like-for-like quotes to be obtained from a minimum of three providers.
The Selection Process
Each provider should be correctly compared like for like to ensure the process is fair and unaffected by bias.
Quotations and confidential/commercially sensitive information received from vendors should be kept confidential and never shared with another vendor.
Additionally, the benefit of one vendor’s work or assessment should never be provided to another vendor to assist in the production of their quote. All vendors should be expected to do their own investigation work and propose their own solution.
For example: If you had a leak with the pool and requested for a pool maintenance company to come and provide a free quotation and through their skill and knowledge they find the location of the leak and propose a solution. The details of this should never be shared to allow the other vendors to simply quote to match the repair without needing to perform the investigation.
Looking for more?
If you are a member of your management committee, (or are looking to set one up) you will know that while the communal property regulations are comprehensive, they are sometimes a little difficult to understand and even once understood its not always easy to apply these generic regulations to your individual building with its specific challenges.
To help with this problem my most recent book the Ultimate Committee handbook gives you detailed and step by step instructions on every aspect of being on your committee and running your building. It explains the communal property law in simple terms including real world examples and instructions on how to best apply these regulations.
To get more information on this book, and view a book preview you can click the below link.
Unlock the true potential of your apartment building or resort with The Ultimate Committee Handbook.
Russell Flick
The Cyprus Communal Guide
Helping you unlock your buildings true potential.
