JFM Block management were appointed by the HHGE Board to take over management of the 255 flats on the HHGE estate from mid October 2020. As of today 20 October 2021 JFM have been in charge of all day to day management and service charge accounting issues for almost exactly one year.

How have JFM done ?

After 8 disastrous years of management by PMA (run by HHGE director Lloyd Paxton) I originally welcomed the appointment JFM to replace PMA.

Almost exactly a year later I now think that I was much too optimistic.

From a personal perspective none of the major problems affecting the long term quality of life of HHGE flat residents and the investments of non resident owners have been addressed. In many case the situation is worse than it was a year ago.

For example;

  1. No progress in sorting out the many problems with the disastrous major works contract signed with Armour Hart in July 2019 and expected to last 14 months at a total cost of around £475,00. Despite expenditure to date of over £270,000 from service charge trust funds (with only 38% completed) , the latest news is that the work will take several more years and cost in excess of £750,000.
  2. No plan at all for replacement of the rusting Crittall windows with double glazed windows.
  3. No progress at all on long overdue drain repairs and a drain survey.
  4. No progress on the gardens and for replacing the privet hedges which have died from honey fungus.
  5. The condition of many windows is so bad that some flats have become un-lettable.
  6. No fire policy has been issued since 2007. If someone died in a fire on the HHGE tomorrow the HHGE Board could be criminally liable for negligence as they have deliberately avoided informing the flat residents about problems relating to fire safety.
  7. The service charge accounts for the financial year ending 30 June 2020 which have just been released are full of errors and tell us nothing about the vast waste of service charge funds which has taken place since July 2019.

Repairs to to broken drains gutters and other problems causing damp in flats take many months to organize when they should take only a few days with blame shifting the standard excuse. This website has multiple examples of delayed or unsatisfactory repairs. It is easy to claim that these are all due to incompetence and lack of maintenance under PMA the previous block managers but JFM have now had over a year to sort these outstanding problems out.

To try and get some perspective I decided to replicate a simple survey of leaking porches I carried out in November 2020 just after JFM took over. This involved photographing the 19 porches in the blocks on the south side of Queens Drive.

List of Porch leaks in Blocks south of Queens Drive  on 20 Oct. 2021 compared with 15 November 2020.

 # PorchesLeaking Porches 15.11.2020Leaking Porches 20.10.2021
Norfolk0110
Oxford0524
Perth0100
Rutland0623
Suffolk0100
Thanet0523
Totals19710
    
After a year of property management by JFM the situation has actually got worse not better. There are now 10 leaking porches instead of 7 a year ago.

The multiple leaking porches are a symptom of much deeper problems. When porches leak the water rots wood, and causes damp inside flats.

See this example at Fife Court. If you cannot even control relatively simple problems like leaking porches, what hope for far more complex problems such as the window repairs and the drains ?