r/Glasgow Tools

We needed a program of major work carried out a couple of years back, but all of it was 100% necessary to prevent the building from basically falling down. The total cost was projected to be in the region of £20k per flat, which was pretty devastating. The surveyors that our factors employed had supervised works like this dozens of times, and we easily obtained a grant from the council to cover 50%.

In the end they didn’t need to use the built in contingency and we paid a total of around 7.5k per flat. But be aware - the council require all the owners to pay their full projected share up front before they will release the grant money. Because one owner in our building was refusing to even communicate we had to stump up nearly 11k initially and wait for a refund down the line. The factors ended up taking the last owner to court to get them to pay up.

So the good news is whatever happens you won’t need to pay out the full amount. Even better, the factors can’t force this on you. More than 50% of the owners will need to agree to the works before anything can happen. And it will need to be tendered properly. Whoever this survey company they have employed is, it sounds more like they’ve come up with a list of every conceivable thing that needs fixed/could be upgraded and then put an estimated cost against it, rather than actually coming up with an approved list of works and getting proper estimates done.

You’re right, however, that you probably won’t be able to sell until this is settled one way or another. I think 3 sales in our building fell through once the required works came to light. Trying to sell without declaring that this had come up would come back to bite you. On the bright side they all sold quickly afterwards.

My advice is don’t panic. Go through the document. See what work is actually necessary. Talk to your neighbours to gauge their thoughts on it. And then get in touch with the factors and let them know what you’re thinking.