Why I Built BlockHub52

Trish Riedel, Founder

BlockHub52 started with a hopeless managing agent.

My own building was being run on individual emails and bits of paper, with overdue charges that never got followed up.

We had to fight like crazy just to get the building painted. The work was already badly overdue, but simply getting it approved, getting the money collected and finally getting the painters in became a battle that took almost three years of continually pushing.

That experience made me think, it shouldn't be this hard.

I've spent the last eighteen years working online, using the internet to solve problems, and it was blindingly obvious to me that the whole thing could be done more easily, more accurately and much faster. The managing agent could save money on salaries, which might even reduce our costs.

But the more I looked, the deeper the rabbit hole.

Although I live in Portugal, while searching for suitable software I discovered the crazy leasehold/freehold system in England and Wales. I have never seen anything like it. I couldn't believe a system this stacked against leaseholders is actually legal.

I hate injustice, and this is one of the biggest examples I have ever come across.

I could see that Right to Manage could be a way for many leaseholders to take control of the management of their own building. It may not be the ultimate fix. That requires the law to change, but it gives people a practical way to take control now.

When I went looking for software built properly for RTM and RMC directors, I couldn't find anything that was accurate, simple and affordable for what I had in mind.

So, I decided to build it myself.

Why It Matters to Me

I have always hated seeing people being treated unfairly, and the more I learned about leasehold, the more incredulous I became that some of this is allowed to happen.

People can be paying thousands of pounds every year while feeling they have very little control over how their own building is run or where their money goes.

I believe we can make it much easier for leaseholders to take control of their own buildings, and much less daunting for the volunteers who step up to run them.

But taking control creates another problem. Suddenly a handful of everyday people are responsible for service charges, compliance, budgets, accounts, contractors, records and a surprising amount of law.

They are volunteers. Most have jobs, families and lives of their own.

That is the problem I decided to solve.

I have owned flats in different places for more than 26 years, and I have also served as a volunteer on the management board of a residential building, in a role broadly equivalent to an RMC or RTM director.

So, I know what it feels like from both sides. I have been the owner wondering why something isn't being done, and I have been one of the people responsible for making sure that it is.

That experience, combined with years of building systems that make complicated jobs easier, gave me the skills to do something about it.

I have also done a lot of bookkeeping over the years in Australia and the UK, including preparing and submitting VAT and annual returns to HMRC. So the financial side of running a building is familiar ground for me.

I am not an accountant and I am not a solicitor. BlockHub52 does not give accounting or legal advice. It follows the rules and always points you to the legislation behind them, so you can check anything for yourself.

I spend time listening to directors and leaseholders who are actually dealing with these responsibilities day to day.

They know where the frustrations are, what takes too much time, what is unnecessarily difficult to understand and what stresses them out.

Those conversations also shape BlockHub52, so the software is built around the way self-managed buildings actually work in practice.

Alongside the software, I am also building a growing collection of free practical resources to help leaseholders and directors navigate the system, understand what they need to do, and feel more confident about the decisions they are making.

I built BlockHub52 because I think volunteer directors deserve better tools, better information and a little more confidence that they are doing things properly.

If that helps more buildings take control of their own affairs and fewer leaseholders feel powerless in a system that too often works against them, then it will have done exactly what I built it to do.

Trish Riedel