Everything we’ve learned: the kind of properties we like — and why our 10% management fee is built around our Property DNA
Short answer: Years of managing every kind of London home taught us that the building, not the rent, decides how much management a home needs. Older conversions, ex-council flats and shared houses generate constant reactive work and can justify a fee of 15 to 20 per cent. Modern new-builds need far less, so we built our 10% fee, including VAT, around them.
I’m Harvey Juttla, one of the two directors at Harvey W James. When we turn a property down, I want the landlord to understand exactly why. This is the long version. The short version lives on our Property DNA page, and this is the article we link to when we explain our decision.
What did years of managing different London homes teach us?
That the building, not the rent, decides how much management a home needs. Over the years we have managed all sorts of homes across London: Victorian and Edwardian houses split into flats, ex-local-authority flats on council estates, blocks from the 1990s and early 2000s, and houses shared by several tenants. Alongside them we have managed flats in modern masterplans: London Dock in Wapping, Skyline Apartments at Makers Yard in Bow, Woodberry Down in Manor House and White City Living in W12.
The difference in the work was not subtle. The older homes produced a steady stream of reactive jobs. A damp patch on a bedroom wall that came back every winter. A roof leak in a conversion where nobody quite owned the roof. Ageing electrics that failed an inspection. An immersion cylinder that gave up in January and left a tenant without hot water. And almost every time, the simple problem of getting a contractor through the door: no concierge, keys to collect, a tenant to coordinate, and a second visit when the first could not get in.
The modern buildings asked far less of us. Heat and hot water came from a communal network through a heat interface unit in the flat. A professional estate team ran the building. A concierge held keys and let contractors in. When something did go wrong, there was usually a developer warranty, a managing agent or a service contract that made the fix shorter.
That experience shaped the book we run today. As at 27 October 2026, 96 of the 120 homes we manage were in the postcode districts of the new-build developments listed on our Property DNA page.
Why does a 10% fee work for a new-build when an older home needs nearer 20%?
Because a management fee pays for time, and a modern new-build takes far less of it. Our core belief is simple: if we take on modern properties that need the minimum of reactive management, our management charges should reflect that.
Think about what one repair costs in time. Someone answers the tenant, works out what is wrong, finds and instructs the right contractor, gets them in, checks the work, deals with the invoice and keeps the landlord informed. Multiply that by the number of jobs a home produces in a year and you have the real cost of managing it.
That is why many older London homes genuinely need a management fee nearer 20 per cent. On those homes the high-street fee is not a rip-off. It pays for real hours. Across the agencies on our How We Compare page, the typical published full-management fee sits between 16.8% and 20.4% including VAT.
Our 10% including VAT is relative to the homes we manage. It is not cheap for the sake of being cheap. It is the right price for buildings that need less of our time, and the time we save comes back to you in the fee.
| Where the management time goes | Older and period homes | Modern new-builds |
|---|---|---|
| Heating and hot water | Individual boilers and immersion cylinders, some decades old | Heat interface units on a communal network |
| Damp and leaks | A recurring reason for call-outs | Rarer, and often covered by a warranty or the block |
| The building around the flat | Roofs and party walls that may have no managing agent | A professionally managed block or estate |
| Getting a contractor in | Keys to collect, access to arrange | A concierge holds keys and lets them in |
| The fee that fits the work | Nearer 20% on the high street | 10% including VAT, all in |
What does our Property DNA look for?
Five things: a building finished in roughly the last ten years with an EPC of band B or better; a studio to three-bedroom apartment, or a modern townhouse case by case; modern heating such as a heat interface unit; a contemporary kitchen and bathroom; and a concierge with professional estate management. In more detail:
- Build age and energy efficiency. Built from about 2016 onwards, with an EPC rating of 81 or more, which is band B or better on the A to G scale.
- Size and layout. Studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom modern apartments, plus modern three- and four-bedroom new-build townhouses case by case. Our benchmark is a Berkeley Homes townhouse we manage in Kidbrooke Village.
- Modern heating, cooling and plumbing. Heat interface units, underfloor heating, MVHR ventilation and comfort cooling, rather than an ageing boiler or a 1990s immersion cylinder. We wrote about how we run new-build utilities separately.
- Contemporary interiors. Integrated kitchens from makers such as Siemens, Miele, Bosch and Smeg, and hotel-style bathrooms in porcelain or stone.
- A concierge and professional estate management. Someone on site to hold keys and let contractors in, and a team that runs the building every day.
The Property DNA page lists the developments where we manage homes today, from London Dock and Wood Wharf to Royal Wharf, Grand Union and Kidbrooke Village.
Why do we ask questions before booking a valuation visit?
Because the building usually tells us whether a home fits, and a visit should never be a formality that ends in a no. Before we book, we ask when the building was finished, its EPC rating, how the flat is heated, whether there is a concierge, and for a few photos. Often the public EPC register answers the rating question before we even ask.
If the home fits, we book the visit and price it from our own letting data. If it clearly does not, we say so straight away: “Unfortunately, this isn’t our type of property.”
I know how that line can land. It is not a judgement on your home, and we are not being picky. A period flat can be a lovely home and a sound investment. It simply needs an agent organised around reactive repairs, with the contractors and the fee to match. Telling you in our first reply saves you a morning waiting in for a valuation we would end up declining, and gets your home to the right agent sooner.
We won’t take on a home that needs a 20 per cent service and give it a 10 per cent one. That would be unfair to you, to your tenant, and to every landlord whose fee depends on us keeping the model honest.
Is your London home a fit?
If you own a modern London apartment or townhouse built in roughly the last ten years, we would like to hear from you, wherever it is in London. The building decides it, not the postcode. We will visit, price your home from our own data and show you the working.
Book a free rental valuation, or read the full Property DNA first.
Sources
- Harvey W James, How We Compare: London agencies’ published full-management fees, normalised to include VAT, re-checked against each agency’s own fee page on 8 September 2026: https://www.harveywjames.com/how-we-compare
- Harvey W James portfolio by postcode district (Street CRM), /stats.json, as at 27 October 2026: https://www.harveywjames.com/stats.json
- BRE client report for the Scottish Government, Development work relating to a potential new metric for Scottish Energy Performance Certificates, Table 6 “Existing EPC banding” (band B runs from a SAP rating of 81 to 91): https://www.gov.scot/publications/bre-client-report-development-work-relating-potential-new-metric-scottish-energy-performance-certificates/pages/5/
- GOV.UK, Find an energy certificate (the public EPC register): https://find-energy-certificate.service.gov.uk/