Five Minutes With… Mark King, Head of Block Management at Bold & Reeves
Want to find out what goes on behind closed doors at Bold & Reeves? Now’s your chance. We speak to Mark King, Head of Block Management at Bold & Reeves, who has been with the company since its early days. He tells us what it’s like to manage some of the best properties in London.
Please could you tell us a bit about your career before you joined Bold & Reeves?
Originally, my core trade was hospitality and then I side-stepped into an estate manager role and have been around property since 2002.
What is your role at Bold & Reeves?
I am now Head of Block Management. I started as Property Manager in 2014. I was then promoted to Senior Property Manager in 2020. But I have always been dealing with the blocks throughout, so it made sense to move to Head of Block Management this year. Since we have been taking on new, younger staff, we’ve been able to share some of the knowledge we’ve picked up over the past nine years – which has been really helpful.
What’s your average day like?
No two days are the same. I am constantly dealing with planned preventative maintenance or reactive maintenance, depending on which client gets to you first. It’s a busy role, as my colleagues will testify! Our core business is planned preventative maintenance, which is really what Bold & Reeves started with. There was nobody out there providing an emphasis on that service in the property industry. We really drill down into the nuts and bolts of each property, put together a schedule, and then use our BRMS as a useful tool to complete the jobs.
What have been the challenges of your role?
One of our main difficulties is managing the expectations of our clients’ teams, such as PAs. The actual job of servicing properties is relatively simple. We do everything from changing a lightbulb to civil engineering – and it’s just about managing expectations around these elements.
What have been the highlights?
Across the past few years, I’ve overseen boiler installs and complete mechanical and electrical installs for both blocks and private individual houses. It’s actually quite rewarding when you go from pulling the old stuff out and then putting the new kit in. I’ve also done several large-scale projects, but this year we’ve been working on a £370,000 air conditioning refurbishment in an office block in EC1. So that’s probably one of the biggest highlights so far.
How important is the logbook to your role?
We couldn’t do it without it. There’s just no way we could work with the volume we do without the logbook. It’s great because everything is in one place, from engineer documents to insurance documents to the contract we have with clients. It’s brilliant. It makes our job easy because you know when you have to carry out certain tasks for a client’s property, be it a VIP home or a block.
What do you enjoy about being a part of Bold & Reeves?
We’re a really close team. We all get on very well. And it’s great to be able to add value to our clients’ homes.
How does the Bold & Reeves service set itself apart?
We care. We treat every property as if it was our own. We are very lucky that we have a large black book of preferred trusted contractors, or partners as we call them, and we know that they will do the same.
To find out more about our property management services, email Henry Browne at henry.browne@boldandreeves.co.uk