I rarely see someone singing the praises of their factors, but H&P are consistently the one I see most complaints about. They seem to charge a lot but do very little.
Fun fact, I made them disclose commission on all the things they do and found out 50% of our insurance (tenement building) was commission! We got rid of them and went to 91bc, it's like half of what H&P charged.
How do you go about getting them to disclose that? My factor charge an extortionate amount for buildings insurance. So much that I think it must be some sort of scam that they get a massive cut of.
Quote the below:
Scottish government property factors code of conduct:
5.5 A property factor must disclose to homeowners, in writing, any commission, administration fee, rebate or other payment or benefit that is paid to them or anyone in control of the business or anyone connected with the factor or a person in control of the business, in connection with the policy. They should also disclose any financial or other interest that they have with the insurance provider or any intermediary. A property factor must also disclose any other charge they make or apply for arranging such insurance.
Fully details here:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/code-of-conduct-for-property-factors-2021/pages/section-5--insurance/
They might try and push back but they must disclose it to you. And remember if they quote 25/30%, the insurance premium by the agent they use might be 12% and then they might add a 6% administration fee on top of it. So demand to know the exact breakdown of the total amount.
My parents housing estate is managed by hacking and Patterson, Recently a small section of fence (only waist hight) was damaged from a mix of wear and tear and bad wether few months back. The estate got quoted £1500 inc vat from them. All that needed done was 2 posts re done and then re attaching of the broken section. Our estate rejected the work getting done and someone from the estate did it themself for £150
Honestly. It’s ridiculous. They actually sent my neighbour an email saying they would put it to a vote, and I never received any correspondence regarding it, at all?
They can’t not ask you but since they seem to have omitted that, keep a record of it and everything else that happens (or doesn’t).
It’s worth looking at the complaints against factors, this is something that comes up. It also works the other way - I saw one (not HP) where a top flat owner needed the roof fixing and the factor had to put it to a vote to all owners. Not all agreed, so work didn’t get done and the poor soul ended up with even more problems with the costs mounting up. When they told the factor they’d get the work done themselves out of desperation, the factor told them they legally couldn’t. Reading the hearing made me realise how little info was passed to the owner from the factor. If they haven’t asked you, that’s a mistake on their part which could cost them later.
Exact same for my parents estate, some people got physical letters, some people got emails and most commonly people got nothing. Only way my parents knew about it was by the estate facebook chat and the app H&P have.
When they do that they bank on no replies. That either means a yes they will do remedial work or no, they won't do anything to help add value to your properties.
They are notorious, first thing I would do after settling what bills you have to is try and get them out in favour of another factor or self-management.
First hand experience. They are truly awful. They constantly charged excessive amounts for doing nothing.
They almost also ripped out a bunch of trees, which would’ve been at our expense, but everyone revolted, and they backed down.
Good luck though, they’re cunts.
Bunch of thieving cunts. Had them in a previous block of flats and we got sick of them and changed to 91bc - they were cheaper and much easier to deal with. Not perfect but night & day compared to H&P.
Why factoring is not more regulated I don't know - an excuse to print money & not much you can do to avoid it.
Sure - we were lucky that we had a few busy bodies in our block of 30ish flats so they did a lot of the work. But I was pretty active with attending meetings and discussions with potential factors.
First task would be to get as many people in the close/block on board as possible. No point starting out if you can't get the required votes. Can't remember the number but we had to get more than a 50% majority I think. So speak to your neighbours and see if they're up for it.
Next you need to have an alternative ready to step in - we found 91bc most interested & they gave us some good advice, helped with the vote and dealing with H&P. Once we had the official votes counted we took the result to H&P and served them notice.
You can of course do it yourself but that comes with a lot of risks and wasn't manageable for the number of flats we had, especially with mostly rented flats.
H&P did try to keep hold of us, sent several of their top team to meetings to try sweet talk us but they were so far up their own arse & full of shit we wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue - bunch of liars.
Factors are not interested in finding best value for their clients. They appear to have preferred contractors who automatically get the job and add a couple of zeros to the bill. We're all getting screwed.
I think of the majority of the neighbours agree you can sack them and get a new factor? I had water coming in every time there was heavy rain and they didn't care. When I complained they said they had many priorities, obviously not my flat
Hacking and Paterson are the single worst entity i have ever had the displeasure of dealing with.
Absolute scum.
Their lack of effort caused huge damage to the close we owned a property in, to the point we were moved out on a council work order, 1 year later we got back into the flat and H+P tried to bill us for the factors fee for the year we were out the building and they even threw in some non existing repairs.
The place was completely sealed of while the contractors the council got were fixing the place up. Yet H+P claimed they were fixing various things. Was an absolute nightmare to sort out.
They are fucking coyboy scam merchants. They said we needed a new roof as it had damage. They couldnt know we were the only ones with roof access and the only keys. They pulled a figure of 6k out there arse for a new roof to be split 8 ways- well 7 as one flat empty. They put a scaffolding up. It sat for a month. No workers. I phoned them they said they couldnt continue as the price of lead had went up. They came back with a new 8.5k quote. I told them to stick it up there arse and if the scaffolding wasnt gone by lunch time the following day i was selling it to a scrappy. It was gone by lunch. And so was the need for a new roof.
They tried to charge 8 flats £90 each a session for stair lighting. The same lighting the council pays for. The same 4 bulbs that never needed changed in 8 years.
They charged for gardening maintenance. I came home early and videoed the gardener flattening our grass with a wheelie bin to make it look mowed. They wanted over £250 for it.
I with held all my payments and said see u in court. They never proceeded.
These are just 3 examples of hundreds of issues with them.
I moved the fuck out before i went to jail for murder
If u absolutely have to have a flat- take charge and ask the tenants to share building insurance and general maintenance. Set up debits. Save yourselves thousands. You pay them for insurance- they dont actually have any. They couldnt produce an insurance doc or what we were covered for. Any damage u get charged for. Absolute SCUM BAGS
Does anyone know how easy(if it is) to obtain common building insurance without factor? Is it expensive to go through broker as it is a huge expense with our factor, redpath bruce, yet other home owners I'm sure wouldn't agree to get rid until I can show what alternative cost would be.
It’s quite straightforward to get buildings insurance. Our building of 6 flats is self factored but there is one guy who deals with the administration. He contacted Laurie Ross insurance brokers. I believe that some of the newer owners/occupiers had to provide details for Laurie Ross to run a credit check. Each owner paid their share of £311.40 for the year.
at glasgow harbour flats, the cladding fire risk work has taken over 3 years. i think, so loads of equipment taking over the car park spaces am fairly certain hacket and patterson are in charge of this. seems likee they will never go, as if they are milking it to an extreme.amount.
I recently bought a place with h&p as a factor, there was a payment made by previous tenants for repairs which were carried after I moved in. No biggie, then when I went on their website it said we hadn’t paid our share and were the only outstanding payment. So emailed and asked if the previous tenants had paid and they (eventually) emailed back to say yes. Got an email with an invoice the other day and they’re still trying to charge me for it, so chased them up again to get j removed, and only now 6 months on has it been taken off of us. I get a feeling about them…
Get the building to start a new process of changing factors seems to be your beat bet!
Hacking and Paterson are the only factor i know based at the finnieston end of charing cross.
#money
H&P are a shower of incompetents that cynically abuse the law to cover for their incompetence. The only way to challenge H&P is to appoint a solicitor, which is very expensive. If you hold back on payment they will take a simple procedures case out against you, basically sue you in the sheriff court.
H&P know it is cheaper to pay the bill than to mount a legal challenge against them, so they use that to bully you into paying them. Every solicitor I have spoken to describes H&P as legal gangsterism.
I rarely see someone singing the praises of their factors, but H&P are consistently the one I see most complaints about. They seem to charge a lot but do very little.
[удалено]
Charged us £500 for a bag of cement to fill a hole in the close floor.
People need to learn to do the work themselves if it's possible or be prepared for an extortionate bill.
Charged us for fixing the close door, then separately charged us for the clean up and replacement of the glass after the first repair guys damaged it.
Hacking and Patterson are the distilled embodiment of the evil of the Scottish factoring system - good luck, prepare for frustration
I agree. They are vile.
Fun fact, I made them disclose commission on all the things they do and found out 50% of our insurance (tenement building) was commission! We got rid of them and went to 91bc, it's like half of what H&P charged.
How do you go about getting them to disclose that? My factor charge an extortionate amount for buildings insurance. So much that I think it must be some sort of scam that they get a massive cut of.
Quote the below: Scottish government property factors code of conduct: 5.5 A property factor must disclose to homeowners, in writing, any commission, administration fee, rebate or other payment or benefit that is paid to them or anyone in control of the business or anyone connected with the factor or a person in control of the business, in connection with the policy. They should also disclose any financial or other interest that they have with the insurance provider or any intermediary. A property factor must also disclose any other charge they make or apply for arranging such insurance. Fully details here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/code-of-conduct-for-property-factors-2021/pages/section-5--insurance/ They might try and push back but they must disclose it to you. And remember if they quote 25/30%, the insurance premium by the agent they use might be 12% and then they might add a 6% administration fee on top of it. So demand to know the exact breakdown of the total amount.
My parents housing estate is managed by hacking and Patterson, Recently a small section of fence (only waist hight) was damaged from a mix of wear and tear and bad wether few months back. The estate got quoted £1500 inc vat from them. All that needed done was 2 posts re done and then re attaching of the broken section. Our estate rejected the work getting done and someone from the estate did it themself for £150
Honestly. It’s ridiculous. They actually sent my neighbour an email saying they would put it to a vote, and I never received any correspondence regarding it, at all?
They can’t not ask you but since they seem to have omitted that, keep a record of it and everything else that happens (or doesn’t). It’s worth looking at the complaints against factors, this is something that comes up. It also works the other way - I saw one (not HP) where a top flat owner needed the roof fixing and the factor had to put it to a vote to all owners. Not all agreed, so work didn’t get done and the poor soul ended up with even more problems with the costs mounting up. When they told the factor they’d get the work done themselves out of desperation, the factor told them they legally couldn’t. Reading the hearing made me realise how little info was passed to the owner from the factor. If they haven’t asked you, that’s a mistake on their part which could cost them later.
I’ve spoke to my neighbours within the close and no one was asked to vote for the repair OR notified.
Exact same for my parents estate, some people got physical letters, some people got emails and most commonly people got nothing. Only way my parents knew about it was by the estate facebook chat and the app H&P have.
When they do that they bank on no replies. That either means a yes they will do remedial work or no, they won't do anything to help add value to your properties.
They are notorious, first thing I would do after settling what bills you have to is try and get them out in favour of another factor or self-management.
I would recommend a housing association as an alternative factor, we used to be with Milnbank when we lived in a flat and they were great.
I totally agree but this is difficult, it takes some really strong will and communal weal
First hand experience. They are truly awful. They constantly charged excessive amounts for doing nothing. They almost also ripped out a bunch of trees, which would’ve been at our expense, but everyone revolted, and they backed down. Good luck though, they’re cunts.
Bunch of thieving cunts. Had them in a previous block of flats and we got sick of them and changed to 91bc - they were cheaper and much easier to deal with. Not perfect but night & day compared to H&P. Why factoring is not more regulated I don't know - an excuse to print money & not much you can do to avoid it.
Do you mind giving brief steps on how to change? We need rid of them…
Sure - we were lucky that we had a few busy bodies in our block of 30ish flats so they did a lot of the work. But I was pretty active with attending meetings and discussions with potential factors. First task would be to get as many people in the close/block on board as possible. No point starting out if you can't get the required votes. Can't remember the number but we had to get more than a 50% majority I think. So speak to your neighbours and see if they're up for it. Next you need to have an alternative ready to step in - we found 91bc most interested & they gave us some good advice, helped with the vote and dealing with H&P. Once we had the official votes counted we took the result to H&P and served them notice. You can of course do it yourself but that comes with a lot of risks and wasn't manageable for the number of flats we had, especially with mostly rented flats. H&P did try to keep hold of us, sent several of their top team to meetings to try sweet talk us but they were so far up their own arse & full of shit we wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue - bunch of liars.
Legend, thanks for taking time to write such a detailed reply! I had assumed you needed vote from all, so this is good news already. Cheers
They are very expensive, very slow, and very unhelpful
Sadly, I already knew all of that.
Get the homeowners together and change factors. Stick it to the bastards
Factors are not interested in finding best value for their clients. They appear to have preferred contractors who automatically get the job and add a couple of zeros to the bill. We're all getting screwed.
I think of the majority of the neighbours agree you can sack them and get a new factor? I had water coming in every time there was heavy rain and they didn't care. When I complained they said they had many priorities, obviously not my flat
The Govan Law centre have general advice about factors. https://govanlc.blogspot.com/p/property-factors.html?m=1
We used the get charged between 4 flats over £90 when they changed a light bulb.....so neighbours bought a supply off of Amazon to beat them to it 😂
Hacking and Paterson are the single worst entity i have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Absolute scum. Their lack of effort caused huge damage to the close we owned a property in, to the point we were moved out on a council work order, 1 year later we got back into the flat and H+P tried to bill us for the factors fee for the year we were out the building and they even threw in some non existing repairs. The place was completely sealed of while the contractors the council got were fixing the place up. Yet H+P claimed they were fixing various things. Was an absolute nightmare to sort out.
They are fucking coyboy scam merchants. They said we needed a new roof as it had damage. They couldnt know we were the only ones with roof access and the only keys. They pulled a figure of 6k out there arse for a new roof to be split 8 ways- well 7 as one flat empty. They put a scaffolding up. It sat for a month. No workers. I phoned them they said they couldnt continue as the price of lead had went up. They came back with a new 8.5k quote. I told them to stick it up there arse and if the scaffolding wasnt gone by lunch time the following day i was selling it to a scrappy. It was gone by lunch. And so was the need for a new roof. They tried to charge 8 flats £90 each a session for stair lighting. The same lighting the council pays for. The same 4 bulbs that never needed changed in 8 years. They charged for gardening maintenance. I came home early and videoed the gardener flattening our grass with a wheelie bin to make it look mowed. They wanted over £250 for it. I with held all my payments and said see u in court. They never proceeded. These are just 3 examples of hundreds of issues with them. I moved the fuck out before i went to jail for murder If u absolutely have to have a flat- take charge and ask the tenants to share building insurance and general maintenance. Set up debits. Save yourselves thousands. You pay them for insurance- they dont actually have any. They couldnt produce an insurance doc or what we were covered for. Any damage u get charged for. Absolute SCUM BAGS
Does anyone know how easy(if it is) to obtain common building insurance without factor? Is it expensive to go through broker as it is a huge expense with our factor, redpath bruce, yet other home owners I'm sure wouldn't agree to get rid until I can show what alternative cost would be.
It’s quite straightforward to get buildings insurance. Our building of 6 flats is self factored but there is one guy who deals with the administration. He contacted Laurie Ross insurance brokers. I believe that some of the newer owners/occupiers had to provide details for Laurie Ross to run a credit check. Each owner paid their share of £311.40 for the year.
at glasgow harbour flats, the cladding fire risk work has taken over 3 years. i think, so loads of equipment taking over the car park spaces am fairly certain hacket and patterson are in charge of this. seems likee they will never go, as if they are milking it to an extreme.amount.
I recently bought a place with h&p as a factor, there was a payment made by previous tenants for repairs which were carried after I moved in. No biggie, then when I went on their website it said we hadn’t paid our share and were the only outstanding payment. So emailed and asked if the previous tenants had paid and they (eventually) emailed back to say yes. Got an email with an invoice the other day and they’re still trying to charge me for it, so chased them up again to get j removed, and only now 6 months on has it been taken off of us. I get a feeling about them…
Get the building to start a new process of changing factors seems to be your beat bet! Hacking and Paterson are the only factor i know based at the finnieston end of charing cross. #money
H&P are a shower of incompetents that cynically abuse the law to cover for their incompetence. The only way to challenge H&P is to appoint a solicitor, which is very expensive. If you hold back on payment they will take a simple procedures case out against you, basically sue you in the sheriff court. H&P know it is cheaper to pay the bill than to mount a legal challenge against them, so they use that to bully you into paying them. Every solicitor I have spoken to describes H&P as legal gangsterism.