Flat & Apartment Management in Burnley & Pendle

Letting a flat is not the same as letting a house. The lease, the freeholder and the service charge all sit between you and your tenant.

We manage flats and apartments across Colne, Nelson, Burnley, Padiham, Brierfield, Barnoldswick, Barrowford and Clitheroe, alongside the houses.

What surprises most first-time flat landlords is that the difficult part is rarely the tenant. It is the building. You own the space inside your front door; the roof, the drains, the stairwell and the car park belong to someone else, and when something goes wrong out there your job becomes getting a third party to act. That is a different service from managing a terrace, and it is why we read the lease before we market the property rather than after.

Fees are the same as for a house: 10% of the monthly rent for full management, plus a one-off £300 set-up fee payable when the flat is let. Tenant Find is a fixed £450. We are not VAT registered, so nothing is added on top.

What makes a flat different

You own the flat, not the building

Communal repairs, the roof, the drains and the entrance belong to the freeholder or the management company. When something goes wrong out there, your job is getting somebody else to act — and that is almost always the slow part.

The lease may restrict letting

Plenty of leases require the freeholder’s written consent to sublet, set a minimum tenancy length, or ban pets outright. Some charge a fee for the consent. We read the lease before the flat goes on the market, so restrictions surface early rather than mid-tenancy.

Service charge and ground rent are yours

Not the tenant’s. They come out of your rent and they can rise. Budget on what the charge actually is this year rather than what it was when you bought, and ask for the last three years before you assume it is stable.

Section 20 can land a bill without warning

If the freeholder plans major works costing any leaseholder more than £250, they have to consult you first. That consultation is your only real warning that a £4,000 roof bill is coming. Miss the notice and you find out when the demand arrives.

The building insurance is not your insurance

The freeholder insures the structure and you pay a share through the service charge. You still need landlord liability cover and contents cover for anything you have put in, and your tenant needs their own contents policy.

Safety duties inside the flat are still yours

Annual gas safety, an electrical report every five years, working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms where required. The freeholder’s responsibility stops at your front door; everything inside it is on you.

What we handle

Reading the lease before marketing, so consent requirements and restrictions surface early
Obtaining the freeholder’s consent to let where the lease requires it
Marketing, accompanied viewings, referencing and credit checks
Rent collection, arrears chasing and monthly statements
Gas safety certificates, electrical reports and alarm checks — carried out by the same local trades we use on every property
Repairs inside the flat, arranged by us, with the trade’s invoice passed on to you at cost
Chasing the freeholder or managing agent on communal repairs, which is the part flat landlords most want to hand over
Watching for Section 20 notices and telling you plainly what they will cost you
Periodic inspections, deposit protection and serving the prescribed information correctly
Everything the Renters’ Rights Act changed — periodic tenancies, the rent increase procedure and the possession grounds

Buying a flat to let?

Check the service charge, then check three years of it

A charge that has jumped twice is telling you something about the building, the managing agent, or both. The current figure on its own tells you very little.

Ask about reserves and planned works

A healthy sinking fund is worth paying for. An empty one and a flat roof coming to the end of its life is a bill waiting to be divided between you and your neighbours.

Read the letting restrictions before you offer

Some leases make letting impractical rather than impossible — consent fees, minimum terms, restrictions on who can occupy. Far better to find that at offer stage than after completion.

Check how long the lease has left

Short leases get expensive to extend and harder to mortgage, and the premium climbs as the term shortens. The two-year ownership rule before you could extend has now been abolished, which helps, but it does not make a short lease cheap.

Then get the rent checked

We will tell you what the flat should achieve on that street, free and before you commit. Two-bed flats behave differently from two-bed terraces in every one of these towns, and the difference is not always the way people assume.

Get a rent figure and a lease check

Frequently asked questions

Do you manage flats as well as houses?

Yes. We manage flats and apartments across Burnley and Pendle alongside the houses, and the fees are the same — 10% of the monthly rent for full management with a one-off £300 set-up fee when the flat is let, or a fixed £450 for Tenant Find. We are not VAT registered, so there is nothing to add on top.