Safety in numbers

You're faced with a massive hike in service charges and your landlord's demanding a fortune for repairs: these are two of the usual catalysts for flat owners to band together and take communal action. Set up a residents' association and you can speak to your landlord with a single, clear voice. You can ensure your legal rights are respected and win additional rights by applying for official recognition. And you'll get the chance to know your neighbours better. So just how do you go about setting one up?

Get together

Your first and most obvious requirement is a group of residents who are prepared to take an active part, never easy when everybody's busy, or, as with many London blocks, large numbers of flats are sublet. But the more tenants you get involved right from the start, the less likely it will be that one person ends up with all the work. Then it's important to sound out the views of all the leaseholders, including absentees. To be effective, your association needs to represent the whole block, not a small clique. If there's a consensus that an association is a good thing, it's time to elect acting officers, who will draw up a constitution to put to the other residents at an inaugural meeting. Here some help is essential.

Do your homework

The Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) gives information and advice, and the Federation of Private Residents' Associations (FPRA), a non-profit-making organisation with around 350 member associations, mostly in London and the South-East, offers a £10 pack with tips on everything from first steps to getting statutory recognition, including a draft constitution you can use as a template. FPRA chairman Muriel Guest-Smith emphasises: "The constitution should be adapted. A block of 10 flats won't need anything as complex as a block of 100."

Hold meetings

Once your association is up and running, with elected officers, a committee and agreed annual subscription, you will need to hold regular committee meetings, as well as general meetings for all members. And you'll want to start a dialogue with your landlord. The FPRA pack outlines your rights under the 1987 Landlord and Tenant Act and if your landlord officially recognises your association, you'll have additional legal rights: for instance, to be consulted on the appointment of a managing agent, or to recommend contractors. If he won't co-operate, you can achieve recognition through the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal.

If you have other problems, the FPRA (£25 joining fee, plus £2 annually per flat) offers free legal advice to members. But most landlords and managing agents welcome residents' associations.

Says Richard Lambert of the British Property Federation, which represents landlords, "The general feeling of our members is that it's usually helpful if there's an organised-representative group, as long as it's constructive." Andrew Mc-Keer, ARMA chairman, agrees: "We encourage them. They can make an agent's life a lot easier if you're working with them rather than against them.î Gerry Fox, of managing agent WillowAcre, adds: "It's far better to have a dialogue; it's like harnessing everybody's energy."

Buying freeholds

If you're joining together to buy your freehold, you'll need to set up a management company. And government legislation currently going through Parliament will allow tenants who haven't enfranchised to form Right to Manage companies. But some blocks keep their residents' associations, even after they've become freeholders, and Richard Hickie of managing agent Residents Association Management thinks it will be the same with Right to Manage.

While the company takes on the major tasks of management, the residents' association can still play its part by fielding the everyday issues that are so important to people-parking, rubbish disposal, problems with pigeons.

Hickie adds: "It's difficult to get enough active people, but it's a good idea to have the two, if possible."

Even if you're thinking of translating it into a management company later, a residents' association is an excellent way of getting your block into the habit of working together. In our frantic, atomised city, there's nothing like feeling you belong to a community.