Block Management UK’s Finance Director looks forward to 2021 and rebuilding of the property management industry’s reputation
Paul Mather is Finance Director at Block Management UK Ltd. Over his thirteen-year tenure at the company, he has seen many changes including growth and achievement of industry accreditation but also a change in public opinion about the industry.
Paul started with Block Management UK Ltd as an accounts assistant in 2008. “I was one of a small team of under ten, managing about 1,500 units. The biggest change to the company has been our continued expansion; now being more than four times that size.”
Through dedication and commitment, Paul worked his way up through the company. In the subsequent years since, he was appointed Accounts Manager in 2010, Associate Director in 2013 before becoming Finance Director in September 2018.
Paul’s job has been the oversight of the day-to-day running of our client
accounts department with predominant focus on providing advice to many of our regular clients, in conjunction with considerable involvement with the company’s overall business development activities and staffing. Aside from the growth in managed units – and increased need for more office space - he cites the increasing demands of the job as the biggest change he’s seen in the property management industry.
“Industry-wise the last few years since the Grenfell Tower disaster have been extremely challenging. Not only with continuing regulatory reform, but the way this has altered perspective on our industry and expectation on us.
Clients now demand more time, responsiveness and resolution from us in every way and certainly the general perception of our industry has suffered, which is probably reflective of a cultural change in general more than anything. In the past an opportunity for exploitation by agents did exist, but thanks to better regulation and oversight this is largely eradicated, but people do not necessarily see it that way as there remains a general lack of industry wide trust."
However, Block Management continues to successfully navigate its way through legislative reform and pandemic constraints, and Paul remains positive about the future. “Our job certainly isn’t just arranging and paying for maintenance works which I think is potentially the view from someone on the outside looking in. Our Association of Residential Managing Agents (
ARMA) accreditation was a massive achievement for us and was the outcome of several years of concerted effort and work where we really learned what property management is through knowledge expansion, both personally and companywide, a process which continues with every day.”
And at Block Management UK, we believe it is through education and professional development that clients experience first-hand the benefits of what a creditable and experienced managing agent can do for their property.
(16 February 2021 )