18 May 2012 12:28:I have to take great issue with the last message from F Jackson the administrator but firstly I should say I have been mildly impressed with his other contributions in recent weeks.
I am the President of a large urbanisation ( more than 700 homes not apartments) and together with some 30 other owners run the urbanisation without an administrator and without any remuneration whatsoever, why do we do this.....because succesive committees driven by useless, dare I say corrupt at worst or incompetent at best, administrators took this urbanisation to the brink of disaster with a failing water supply, diesel generated electricity, an insolvent trading position with very large debts to past suppliers ( they just stopped paying previous suppliers and took on new ones that they didn't pay either) and private owner community charge debts running at a rate of more than 30%.
I think one of the most ludicrous statements is that about the need for specialist budgeting being required and the inference that the best way is through an administrator together with independent sourcing of suppliers... that is a real laugh in our case on both counts I'm afraid as the independent sourcng of our suppliers by our committee has saved the community more than €130,000 per annum to date, use your own judgement to understand one of the reasons !
Yes we have had some difficult times, we have had some claims from various sources but we employ a solicitor who works for us and OUR interests to defend OUR position... to date we have not lost a single case and bear in mind all of them were generated from the incompetance of the previous administrator. Has it been worth the considerable effort... you bet it has, we have a community that is not at war, we have very sound finances, we have almost eradicated the electricity problem, we have completed the water infrastructure, we have private owner community fee debt below 5%, the urbanisation looks better than it has ever done and several more groups now exist and are very active within the urbanisation bringing social, gardeningand help group activities enjoyed by very many people in the community.
I don't doubt that there good administrators around and you may be one of them Mr Jackson but there are sufficient numbers of grossly inefficient and in some case wholly corrupt ones to sour the professions standing , of course gathering the hard evidence to follow that accusation is very difficult if not impossible, as one of our suppliers said to me recently...'cash exchanges are very difficult to prove'.
I have a bid problem with administrators in the sense that I have yet to see one that has empathy and interest in the community itself, they are unable to manage an urbanisation like this in an effiecient way and it seems that despite everything they quickly turn into dictators who operate the urbanisation and interpret HPL for their own benefit...
Mr Jackson nothing I have said here is meant to cast any doubt over you and your company but you will judge from the strength of feeling in this message what I think about the profession generally and I really think the time has come for it to be investigated for the sake of those within it that do a good job... we have also some experience of the professional association and frankly it is no different in the way it operates than the law society bodies around the world, criticism of its members is not welcome !!
Remember the Administrator works for and is paid by the community, being paid he should earn his money, be efficient, be honest and heed entirely the wishes of the community at all times.... that's what we do for free and the difference is remarkable because of the success we have had.
Barry
This message was last edited by Fighter2 on 18/05/2012.
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