Over 100 facility management (FM) professionals gathered at a seminar aimed at identifying and validating all service charge related components to make it easier for players to understand and highlight any challenges and limitations in calculating figures. Special emphasis was laid on cost and energy saving initiatives. The seminar involved renowned speakers and panelists in the industry, who included Peter Crogan, CEO, BCS Strata Management Services, Ryan Darnell, Khidmah senior services manager, Jennifer Blackwell-Spencer, strata consultant and Christiane Murray, head of Landmark’s property management. They discussed key topics which included the allocation of costs, lifecycle of
service charges and distinction between FM and Owners Association (OA) fees.

The MEFMA focus group received 48 out of 100 surveys sent to owners of residential and commercial buildings, though rates await approvals on two master developers before finalisation of the report. The available surveys were made across two villa communities, 34 retail residential buildings, four commercial and eight mixed use buildings.

“MEFMA wants survey results to go towards an industry standard benchmark on the subject but it does not have enough information to do this yet,” said Dilip Khatwani, chief executive and cofounder, Reliance FM.

During the post presentation the house opened to a Q&A session, in which amongst other distinguished guests Ricardo Pascoal, director of FM, Census International raised a question on how MEFMA was going to distinguish between the fees for FM providers versus OA management costs?” The question was answered by Khatwani saying that, “FM providers will have to supervise OAs but it will need 12 months of operation before anyone can see
full results.” The audience also raised its concerns on how the OA will collect service charges and how the different areas will be defined. “Master community charges and utility charges were two areas where the focus group needed to do more work. We think end users will need more clarity and granularity on these charges and want  to come up with a standard budgeting format for OA,” said Crogan.

“The only variable is the allocation of cost. Total cost of service charges will remain the same,” explained Christopher Mills, technical director, Olive-VFM (UAE).