Brisk exists because the people paying for a building need enough information to make decisions about it. A service charge demand tells residents what they owe. It may tell them much less about why the work is needed, how the price was agreed, or whether the previous repair solved the problem. When those answers are difficult to find, questioning a decision becomes a job in itself.
A block can have a managing agent, regular accounts and years of correspondence while still leaving residents unable to establish what needs doing. The roof continues to leak, another invoice arrives, and someone has to reconstruct the history before anything can move forward. The cost includes the time residents spend pursuing work they have already paid someone to organise.
Start with the building
Brisk is being developed to make that history usable and give residents a clearer basis for deciding what happens next. The first step is a building MOT: a review of the block’s condition, spending, records and outstanding work.
The review brings together:
- repairs, maintenance history and known problems
- service charge budgets, actual spending and reserve funds
- insurance, safety records and recurring duties
- contractors, quotes, invoices and evidence of completed work
- leases, notices, reports and recorded decisions
- outstanding work and the people responsible for it
These records need to be considered together. An invoice records a charge; establishing whether the work was worthwhile also requires knowing what was wrong, what was agreed and what happened afterwards. Where information is missing, the review should make that gap visible. Residents should be able to distinguish what is known from what still needs checking.
Why the records matter
Information about a shared building tends to accumulate around the people dealing with it. One resident remembers the last roof repair. A director has the quotes, the agent holds the accounts, and a contractor knows why the original work was changed. Each may understand their part without anyone having a reliable account of the whole.
When a director leaves or an agent changes, some of that understanding goes with them. The next person starts again, asking for documents and repeating questions that have already been answered. Over time, the building becomes dependent on whoever knows its history and is willing to explain it.
Putting the documents in a portal only solves part of this problem. Residents still need to connect a reported fault to a decision, a payment and a result. That record should remain useful when the people involved change.
From a review to a decision
The building MOT starts with straightforward questions. What does the block need? What are residents paying for? Who is responsible for the work, and what evidence is there that it has been done?
The intended result is a shared account of the building’s current position:
- what is broken, overdue or uncertain
- what work is planned and why
- what the accounts show about available funds and expected costs
- what evidence supports the spending
- who is responsible for each next step
- which decisions residents need to make
This should make it easier to discuss a budget, compare proposals and challenge spending where the evidence does not support it. It should also help agents and contractors act on a clear account of the problem, without asking residents to assemble the same history each time.
Keep track of what happens next
A review has limited value if its findings sit in another document while the same problems continue. An identified repair needs someone responsible for progressing it, a record of what was agreed and a check that the work addressed the fault. If it did not, that result needs to inform the next decision.
The longer-term aim is for Brisk to retain this understanding as the building changes. Residents should be able to see how earlier decisions worked out and use that evidence when choosing what to do next. The practical test is whether they can resolve problems and plan expenditure with less time spent chasing information.
Register your building
Brisk is being developed with leaseholders, resident directors, residents and property owners who want more control over their shared buildings. The starting point is a review of what the block needs, what residents are paying for and what should be addressed first.
Registering your building helps us understand the issues affecting your block and lets us contact you when onboarding becomes available.
