Residents living in Firstport occupied retirement developments are getting wise to the fact that their managing agent actively seeks ways to profiteer from them, even if it means using companies to price fix contracts.
It is not always easy to stop Firstport's corrupt practices, but it is easy to stop gifting them income.
If you arer selling your flat you should NEVER use Retirement Homesearch, however much you are encouraged to do so.
In the vast majority of cases they end up being much more expensive than a high st estate agent, nor do they carry out the detailed work an estage agent would carry out and they are certainly not as skilled in giving a fair valuation on the property price.
Retirement Homesearch rely on a rapid turnover of sales in order to fund their parent groups debt mountain.
They claim that they "can be cheaper because unlike an estate agent they do not need to pay for staffed offices"
This much is true. And the reason why? Because they use the Development Manager's office and the "staff" just happens to be the Development Manager!
It is through the development service charge that pays for the office, stationary and the staff.
So it is the residents who are paying a significant sum of money (which is not provided for in the lease) towards the administration costs of a private company that has no connection to the development.
Residents are paying the wages of the development manager whilst they are undertaking work on behalf of Retirement Homesearch.
The answer Retirement Homesearch or Firstport will give is that "The development manager will only undertake Retirement Homesearch duties during their lunch break"
Really? So if a customer turns up to view a flat at 11am is the development manager going to tell them to come back during their lunch hour?
Development managers are "encouraged" to promote Retirement Homesearch
They must have Retirement Homesearch material readily available.
They are to be "guided" on their role as Retirement Homesearch's on site representatives.
Indeed a new breed of Retirement Homesearch "Ambassadors" are set to "coach" site based Firstport employees to ensure maximum instruction and sales targets are achieved.
In the meantime Retirement Homesearch profits which stood at 1,771,001 pounds in 2014 have dropped to 984,745 pounds in 2015, though this figure includes 94,000 pounds of restructuring and redundancy costs.
