Blocsphere: 2021 Round Up!

29th Nov 2021

2021 slowly saw the world getting back to a sense of normality, and whilst we are not fully there yet, the past year has actually been an incredible period of development for our company. And while some of you have no doubt been keeping up with progress on our social media platforms, we thought it would be a nice idea to round things up here.

Expanding team

We are always looking to grow our teams with people who share our energy and enthusiasm for creating the best experience for our customers, and this year 6 new members joined our team!

Our two Property Administrators, Jack James and Tom Swancott, joined us April. Jack and Tom work closely with our Property Managers to ensure our property portfolio is being managed to the highest standards. Our administration team work closely with our contractors to arrange maintenance work, liaise with flat owners and sub tenants to inform them of, and ensure they are complying with, important fire safety rules and also keep our database of flat owner and sub tenant details up to date. Jack and Tom assist with a range of different things – which keeps them busy!

August saw the arrival of another 2 members of staff, Kellianne Wheale and Shannon Edmunds. Kellianne works in our Accounts department as our Client Account Administrator, where she assists our Accounts Manager with ensuring all financial matters are carried out to our high standards and helps and advises leaseholders with their service charge accounts.

Shannon, our Legal Administrator, assists with a range of legal matters such as compliance of lease obligations, lease extensions and producing sales packs for leaseholders wanting to sell their properties.

Finally, our 2 latest additions were Chester Jones and Jake Lockerman. Our Building Surveyor, Chester, conducts building surveys across our portfolio comprising apartment blocks and housing estates and identifies any structural and refurbishment requirements.

Our Partnership Recruitment Administrator, Jake, works alongside our Partnership Operations Manager on our Local Property Manager licence model. Jake is kept busy conducting interviews of potential Local Property Managers, making sure they are the fit.

Local Property Manager Network

During our 8 years of operating, we noticed a gap in the market when it came to property management. 2021 saw the arrival of a new business model where we have started to build a network of Local Property Managers who will operate in each postcode district across the UK.

Our Local Property Manager (LPM) network currently includes:

• Saheem Altaf (Leeds)
• Hijab Khan (Milton Keynes)
• Jasmin Dear (Lincoln)
• Mo Adel (East London)
• David Yupa (North London)

We are still looking to grow our LPM network even further, keep a look out for new additions joining in the following months!

New appointments

This year has seen an unprecedented growth in our property portfolio. Over the last year we have taken over/been awarded the management of 688 properties under 17 exciting developments.

• 11 Marlborough Road (West London)
• 4 South Grove (Kent)
• 9 Kitto Road (Southeast London)
• Arizona House (East Grinstead)
• Bryngwyn Manor (Hereford)
• Cowleaze Road (Kingston)
• Meadowdale (Powys)
• Saxon House (Ipswich)
• The Hermitage (Poole)
• Union Court (Hereford)
• Westgate Lawns (Bridgnorth)
• Vaughan Court (Hereford)
• Yorkdale (Leeds)
• Trinity Gate (Taunton)
• Mildmay Road (North London)
• Woodston Oast House (Worcester)
• St Mary’s Court (Bridgnorth)

We have also been awarded management of another 2 developments which we will take over as Managing Agent early 2022.

News on the Block Awards Finalist

This year we were delighted to be a finalist at the News on the Block Awards 2021. We were shortlisted in the ‘Property Management Company of the Year’ category, which was an amazing achievement for the team here at Blocsphere!

£500 raised for Comic Relief

For Comic Relief this year, our team were set the challenge to walk 1 million steps for Comic Relief! Over the course of 2 weeks, our team not only hit the 1 million step goal, but we also managed to raise £500 for Comic Relief. A great amount of money going to such a worthy cause!

£4.7m in Building Safety Funds

In May we were delighted to had been awarded £4.7m in Building Safety Funds, which will ensure the safety of those living in a high-rise building in London. The building, consisting of 153 leasehold properties, has been through an exhaustive process over the past year and have now been successfully awarded funding, which will be used towards the cost of remediation to the building, because of the various defective cladding issues.

These funds will not only help to directly reduce health and safety risks but will also ensure that leaseholders are protected from the costs of remediating unsafe cladding. What a great achievement for Blocsphere, we look forward to getting the remedial work started in the new year!

Merch

Another exciting thing that happened this year is that we now have merch! Each new Local Property Manager is given a marketing kit full of Blocsphere merch to help promote our brand when on site visits and to enhance their home offices.

Our merch collection currently includes:

• Large umbrella
• Mug
• Pen
• Notebook
• Jacket
• Water bottle
• Leaflets

Make sure to keep a look out for our Property Managers ‘rocking’ the Blocsphere merch on their site visits!

Growing online presence

Our online presence has grown predominantly over the past year, especially our social media channels. We have hit huge milestones on both Facebook and LinkedIn, with now having over 1000 followers on both. We enjoy creating content and keeping our followers up-to-date on what we’re up to. If you’re not already, make sure you follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram so you don’t miss out on all the fun!