The new service sees managers visit a client’s property personally to diagnose or predict problems without the need for an engineer.
Will Davies, managing director of aspect.co.uk, said: “We took a policy decision that we would not do work for letting agents that ‘milk’ their clients by charging a fee to manage the property and then also take a commission from the companies they use to maintain the properties. We didn’t want to be associated with that.
“aspect.co.uk used to manage property maintenance work around London for Foxtons Lettings Agency. We stopped when they wanted to increase their commission from 15% to 20%.
The Office of Fair Trading recently began a year-long investigation into the residential property management industry after years of complaints from landlords and tenants.
The OFT said it will concentrate on whether managing agents and freeholders are doing their utmost to reduce costs for tenants.
Rachel Merelie, senior study officer for the OFT, said: “Service charges for the maintenance of a building can be substantial and we want to make sure that leaseholders are getting a fair deal.
“We are concerned that management agents and freeholders may not be incentivised to keep maintenance costs down and that leaseholders may not receive value for money.”
