Factoring

Houses on the Hill

OTHA provides a property management (or factoring) service for owners within some of our mixed-ownership developments. We work hard to ensure our properties are maintained to a high standard through the development and delivery of a flexible, high quality, cost-efficient service.

Our services include:

  • Coordinating and carrying out work on the owners' behalf
  • Administration of common repairs/maintenance, buildings insurance (where applicable) and estate maintenance
  • Ensuring that the property is properly maintained and insured (where applicable)

Our Housing team carry out quarterly inspections of all our closes (including factored properties) and our estates. The inspections are recorded and are used to ensure that the common areas are being maintained to a high standard and identifying any remedial repairs or health and safety concerns.

We are registered with the Scottish Government in the Property Factor Register No. PF000264

As part of the Code of Conduct, we must adhere to, we will issue a Written Statement of Services to all owners. This will detail the service we provide, how this is to be paid for, and details of all the costs associated with our service as a factor.

Help improve our service

We welcome both positive and negative feedback, as it helps us develop and improve our property management service. Please get in touch or complete our online feedback form.

Frequently Asked Questions

Select headings to expand.

What is factoring?

Factoring is a service provided by a property management company who act on behalf of owner-occupiers or shared owners to maintain areas that have a common interest to an excellent standard and then apportion the cost of the repairs to owners. Areas of common interest are the building structure, roofs, close and backcourt.

What is the Deed of Conditions?

Your Deed of Condition is a legal document and details your responsibility and rights towards common repairs also known as a “burden”. Within the Deeds there might also be information regarding the management of the common areas such as the obligations and duties of the factor. The Deeds should also define the procedures for dealing with repairs and routine maintenance, provision for insurance, and explains the procedures for the factor to recover any outstanding debts.

What are my responsibilities as a home-owner?

Owners are expected to keep their property and communal areas well maintained. Owners are also expected to pay for common repairs and a management fee for their factoring services. You may be asked to pay a deposit towards common repairs. When you leave your deposit will be refunded and the new owner takes over your responsibilities.

What am I entitled to as a home-owner?

As an owner you have the rights to make any alterations and amendments to your home in accordance with planning department regulations. However a home-owner can not make any changes to their property or common areas that will interfere with other owners rights or cause a nuisance in the common areas.

What should I do about nuisances caused by my neighbour?

If you are experiencing anti-social behaviour from your neighbours that are not factoring related, e.g. loud noises, we recommend that you either talk to your neighbour, seek the help of the police or call the anti-social behaviour network.

If your neighbour is a tenant of OTHA, you can register a complaint and our Housing Services team will do our best to help. If your complaint is about another owner or a tenant of a private landlord then we will offer you advice on how to complain to the relevant agencies but we are unable to deal with matters not directly related to our factoring service.

How do I make complaints?

Should you ever have a reason to be unhappy with our services or standard of work then in the first instance you should try and resolve your complaint with staff. However if you are not satisfied with our response then please request a copy of our Factoring Complaints Procedure.

Selling Your Property?

When you have agreed a sale for your property please instruct your solicitor to inform us in plenty of time so that we can amend our records. We send a common charges invoice to your solicitor on the date of settlement. In the event of there being an outstanding balance at the date of sale your solicitor will normally deduct this from the proceeds of the sale.

If you pay by standing order, please remember to cancel this with your bank.