Brisk exists because the people who pay for a building should be able to understand and control it.
Too many blocks of flats are run through fog: scattered emails, unclear invoices, slow repairs, hidden documents, rising service charges and decisions residents can only question after the money has gone.
That is not good enough for people’s homes.
What is a building MOT?
The building MOT looks at the practical parts of the block that residents already pay for.
- repairs and known maintenance issues
- service charge budgets and actual spending
- reserve funds and building account balances
- insurance, safety work and recurring duties
- contractors, quotes, invoices and evidence
- leases, notices, reports and building documents
- decisions made by residents, directors, owners or managing agents
- work that is overdue, unclear or not properly recorded
The idea of Brisk is to turn the building into something residents can understand, share and act on.
If successful, this will represent a major step forward in building governance.
Why the time is ripe
Many residents are asked to pay more each year without being shown the full picture.
The information is often split across emails, online portals, spreadsheets, PDFs, phone calls and private notes. One person may know about the roof. Another person may have the invoices. Someone else may remember the last contractor. New residents, new directors and even current leaseholders can be left guessing.
That makes every problem harder:
- you cannot see why the service charge changed
- you cannot tell whether a repair was completed properly
- you cannot easily check who approved the spending
- you cannot compare contractors or quotes
- you cannot prove a problem has been ignored
- you cannot plan for future costs with confidence
Residents lose control of the building they are paying for and living in.
Brisk is built against that. The building should not be a black box.
What Brisk does first
Brisk starts by reviewing the building’s current state.
That means looking at documents, budgets, contractors, repair history, known risks and various obligations. It also means asking simple questions: What does the building need? Why does it need it? Who is responsible? What does it cost? What has already happened? What is due next?
Those answers are turned into one clear building state, so residents do not have to rebuild the truth from scattered messages and half-remembered conversations.
This is the first step toward a different kind of building: one where the building learns over time to fit the sustenance requirements of the residents, rather than an external entity or person who doesn’t live there.
What residents get
A Brisk building MOT gives residents a plain view:
- what is broken, risky or unclear
- what work is planned or overdue
- what money is in the service charge and reserve accounts
- what invoices, quotes and documents support the spending
- who is responsible for each next step
- what needs a resident decision
- what can be challenged with evidence
This helps residents have better conversations with managing agents, contractors, directors, freeholders, neighbours and value-increasing professionals. It lays out the buildings facts for all to see.
The aim is not to make residents do more admin. The aim is to remove and abstract the painfully slow admin that often forces residents to appointment a managing agent.
One step forward
Brisk is being developed with leaseholders, resident directors, flat block residents and property owners who want more control their shared spaces.
The first step is a building-level review: what the block needs, what the residents are paying for, what is unclear, and what should be sorted first.
If you register your building, Brisk can understand the issues affecting your block and contact you when onboarding becomes available.
The long-term goal is a fairer way to run shared buildings: less confusion, less waste, fewer gatekeepers, and more control for the people who live there.
