HMO management checklist: what the job should actually include

What should HMO management include?

“Fully managed” is quoted as though it described a fixed scope. It does not. Between two companies both using the phrase, the practical difference can be the whole of the repairs process, the whole of the compliance calendar and the whole of the evidence trail. The fee is not the thing to compare first. The scope is.

So here is the checklist. Eight areas the job has to cover, in the order they tend to matter, each with the one question that tests whether a manager is actually doing it rather than describing it. Take it to a viewing. It works on any operator or agent, including us.

Resident administration

Referencing and affordability assessment, the agreement itself, prescribed information and deposit protection in a government-approved scheme, the move-in record, the rent ledger, and the handling of arrears when they appear. In shared housing this is heavier than in a single let, because it happens per room rather than per building and the turnover is faster.

The test: ask who assesses affordability, on what evidence, and what happens when someone falls behind in month three. An answer that stops at “we reference tenants” has not described a process.

Repairs: triage, instruction, closure

Three separate things, and most of the failures happen between them rather than within them.

• Triage. Is this a safety issue, and is it a recurrence? Both questions have to be asked before the job is priced, because both change what happens next. Gas, fire, flooding, dangerous electrics and security threats do not queue behind a spending approval.
• Instruction. A written work order rather than a phone call: exact scope, address, access arrangements, an agreed cost limit, an attendance deadline and the evidence required at the end. Specialist work goes to the trade qualified for it.
• Closure. The part that is usually missing. A contractor marking a job complete, or an invoice being paid, is not proof the work was done. Before-and-after evidence compared against the original scope is.

The test: ask what happens to a repair that was closed and then failed again a fortnight later. If it becomes a new job, the recurrence is invisible and the underlying fault never gets found.

Inspection cadence

A cadence is only meaningful if it is fixed by policy rather than by availability, and if what it finds goes somewhere. Ours is fortnightly cleaning of communal areas and a quarterly inspection of every room, both on standard forms, with at least 24 hours’ notice before any routine visit.

The test: ask what happens to a finding. A submitted inspection form is evidence that someone attended. It is not evidence that what they found got fixed. Each material finding should become its own tracked action with a named owner and a due date, and should be visible as open until it is closed.

Cleaning

In shared housing the communal areas are the thing residents judge the building by, and the thing that degrades fastest when nobody owns it. A standing cycle with a submitted record each time is the minimum. Cleaning that happens when someone complains is not a cleaning schedule, it is a complaints process.

Contractor control

This is where money leaves a building, and where the separation of duties either exists or does not.

• Are gas, electrical and fire jobs restricted to trades qualified for them, or can a generalist pick them up?
• Is there a cost limit on an instruction, above which a second quote and an approval are required?
• Do the people who instruct work also authorise the payment for it? If so, there is no control, whatever the intentions.
• Who holds keys during a job, and are they accounted for afterwards?

Compliance coordination

Gas safety records, electrical condition reports, fire detection and emergency lighting, the fire risk assessment, the HMO licence and its conditions, deposit protection deadlines. Each has a renewal date, and the failure mode is always the same: a date passes because it belonged to nobody.

The test: ask who holds the calendar, what the lead time is on each renewal, and what happens when a certificate is thirty days from expiry. Where planning and licensing status is itself unresolved, that sits upstream of all of this — see the guides on Article 4 and licensing in Bolton.

Evidence and reporting

An owner does not need to be copied into routine operational traffic, and should not be. What an owner needs is payment on the agreed date, notice of anything structural, legal or expensive before it is decided rather than after, and the ability to ask for the material underneath any of it at any point in the term.

The test is not whether a monthly statement arrives. It is whether, eighteen months in and without notice, the operator can produce the condition evidence for a specific room, the work order for a specific repair and the closing evidence against it.

Escalation

Every arrangement produces a case that does not resolve on the normal path: a contractor who will not attend, a dispute between residents, an allegation, a payment that does not match. What matters is whether there is a defined route for it, whether a named person owns it rather than an inbox, and whether it is reviewed by someone other than the person it concerns.

The test: ask what the complaints route is, and who answers it when the complaint is about the manager.

If you only ask three questions

The checklist above is the thorough version. Compressed to three questions, ask these. Who is the named owner of a case? What has to be true before a case can be closed? And what can you put in front of me, without notice, eighteen months from now?

Our own answers to all eight are on how we operate. What we do with a building we take on is set out on HMO management in Bolton.