National property management company Trafalgar has announced the purchase of a sectional title management portfolio from Investpro, resulting in the addition of 11 complexes containing 350 homes to its existing East London portfolio.
“The management of these additional properties will now be undertaken by our East London office in Vincent, under the direction of our local sectional titles manager Marelize Slabbert,” says Trafalgar MD Andrew Schaefer.
“The services provided will include levy collection and management of the body corporate accounts, full budgeting, financial management and statutory reporting and AGM administration, as well as assistance with facility management services”.
“But more importantly, we have the capacity to also assist with all the new administrative tasks required of bodies corporate and their trustees in terms of the new Sectional Title Schemes Management (STSM) Act and the new Community Schemes Ombud Services (CSOS) Act,” he says.
“These include collection of the fees due by each owner in the scheme to the Ombud, the procurement of professional replacement valuations for insurance purposes every 3 years, the preparation and regular review of formal 10-year maintenance plans, the establishment and management of the separate reserve funds that are now required, fidelity insurance cover and the preparation of the annual financial reports that must be submitted to the CSOS office”.
“We can also advise on the correct procedures for the collection of arrear levies and for registering a dispute at the Ombud’s office, and make qualified staff available to attend dispute hearings if necessary.”
Schaefer also says the demand for professional property management services has been growing steadily since the implementation of the new Acts late last year. “There is a lot more for sectional title trustees and home owners’ associations to do now, in order to stay fully compliant with the new legislation, and they are increasingly seeing the need for experienced and qualified property managers to assist them”.
“Consequently, we have seen very strong organic growth in our portfolios in other cities over the past few months. In Pretoria, for example, we now have 20% more buildings under management than we did at this time last year. Meanwhile in the Western Cape, we will shortly be opening a new office in Stellenbosch to address the additional demand there and in other Winelands towns.”
