Commercial Portfolio Manager

The Howard de Walden Estate is one of London’s largest and most prestigious estates which it manages on behalf of the Howard de Walden family. The Estate owns, manages, and leases approximately 850 properties within 95 acres of Marylebone and is highly diversified spanning five sectors: healthcare, offices, residential, retail and education. The Estate is divided into four strategic portfolios with one Portfolio Manager responsible for commercial property management for each portfolio.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Portfolio Manager with a proven track record and demonstrable experience of all aspects of property management and often complicated mixed-use commercial assets to manage their own portfolio of tenancies and properties. HdWE’s predominant ‘in-house’ model requires effective interaction with all departments including Asset Management, Facilities Management, Residential, Projects & Planning, Legal, Finance and Investment. The role reports into the Director of Property Management.

What you will do:

• All aspects of property & tenancy management including chairing tenants’ meetings and direct liaison.
• Deal with all formal tenants’ legal and works applications: interpret legal documents; respond to leasehold property enquiries; obtain appropriate references; analyse financial accounts to assess covenant strength; liaise with solicitors; and manage to completion.
• Assist in the sale or acquisition of properties.
• Contribute to execute HdWE’s strategic plan at property, portfolio or sector levels.
• Manage and assist credit control for all arrears by liaising with tenants and solicitors to ensure prompt recovery.
• Property inspections to identify repairs, maintenance & improvements.
• Instruct contractors or colleagues on technical matters but ultimately take responsibility.
• Work in collaboration with the FM team to deliver on wider portfolio strategic objectives around matters such as fire door compliance and the preparation of the 10 year PPM reports.
• Check and approve invoices aligned with budgeted service charge expenditure, with appropriate understanding and experience with expenditure coding.
• Instruct legal and finance teams to document transactions and update data records.
• Handle and resolve complaints.
• Agree planned maintenance works for directly managed properties.
• Deal with all aspects of service charges pursuant to RICS Practice Standards for Service Charges in commercial property.
• Devise and set service charge budgets, calculate percentage contributions and caps and ensure correct recovery of costs including PPM works.
• Licensing and consent letters for medical practitioners.
• Assist in business rates appeals and applications in coordination with our service provider who specialises in this field.

What you will need:

• RICS qualified General Practice Surveyor with minimum two years’ post qualification experience.
• Good understanding of the RICS Professional Statement for Commercial Service Charge.
• Ability to negotiate lease terms, and undertake rental, leasehold and freehold valuations.
• Ideally, but not essential, rent reviews and lease renewals experience to include: analysing leases; providing market evidence and understanding property measurements and valuations; serving notices; and, negotiating terms with tenants and surveyors.
• Background knowledge of building construction and diagnosis of a range of property defects.
• Excellent understanding of ESG credentials.
• A commercial approach with strong communication (written and verbal) and negotiation skills.

In addition to property management, you will ideally:

• Participate in the annual property valuation exercise.
• Possess a sound understanding of MEES legislation to maximise EPC improvements.
• Understand and drive the importance of ESG through application of sustainability and energy reduction in property management and aligned with our wider business strategic goals around sustainability.
• Have a passion for prioritising customer engagement as well as a sound working knowledge of integration with the use of CRM software.

What we offer you:

• 25 days holiday per year, plus statutory holidays and 3 discretionary days to cover the Christmas office closure.
• Private medical insurance with Bupa.
• Defined contribution pension scheme with 12.5% employer contributions.
• Discretionary bonus.
• Life assurance at 7x salary.
• Group income protection scheme.
• Interest free season ticket loan.
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and wellbeing app "Help@hand".
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Onsite gym with 7 weekly classes and 2 Wattbikes.
• Regular staff socials and an annual company away day.
• Free fruit and breakfast cereals.
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave policies (12-month qualifying period).
• Hybrid working arrangements - minimum of 155 days in the office per year with minimum of 2 days (not fixed) per week in the office.