Residents' management company (RMC)

RMCs are very common on newer developments. The developer sets one up, names it in every lease (often a "tripartite" lease between landlord, leaseholder and management company), and hands it over to the residents once the flats are sold.

How it works

• Membership: each leaseholder is usually a member or shareholder, and the leases often require a buyer to join when they buy a flat.
• Duties: the company's duties come from the leases, typically repairing, insuring and managing the building and collecting service charges. The service-charge rules apply to it in the same way as to a landlord.
• Directors: volunteers from among the leaseholders. Many RMCs employ a managing agent; others self-manage.

Not to be confused with

• A managing agent, a business hired to do the work, which people often also call "the management company".
• An RTM companyRTM companyA private company limited by guarantee, set up by leaseholders, whose object is to acquire and exercise the right to manage their building., which gets its powers from the right to manage legislation rather than from the leases.
• A freehold companyFreehold companyA company owned by the leaseholders of a building that owns the building's freehold, and so is the landlord under the flat leases., although an RMC can own the freehold too.