You've Just Been Appointed an RMC or RTM Director: The Handover Checklist

Most people become a director of their block's management company the same way: a show of hands at an AGM, a form filed at Companies House, and then nothing. No induction, no files, no handover. The previous board were neighbours doing an unpaid job, and when they step down they usually step away entirely.

The problem is that the building does not pause while you find your feet. The eighteen month clock on recoverable costs keeps running. The consultation that was half done stays half done. The fire risk assessment review date arrives whether or not anyone told you it existed. You did not make any of those decisions, but from the date of your appointment you are one of the people answerable for them.

This is the handover: what to ask for, what to ask, and how to read the answers. It is written for England, though several of the provisions it cites extend more widely. If you want the ongoing job description rather than the joining one, read the RMC director responsibilities checklist; if you are not yet clear what the company itself is, start with what an RMC is and how it works.

What changed the moment you were appointed

Three things are worth knowing before you ask anyone for anything, because they explain why the handover matters so much.

• Your duties are owed to the company, not to the people who elected you. The general duties in sections 171 to 177 of the Companies Act 2006 are owed, by section 170, to the company. That sounds like a technicality until the first time your immediate neighbour asks you to go easy on their arrears, or a group of leaseholders wants the budget cut below what the building needs. Being popular and being compliant are not the same job.
• There is no volunteer discount on the standard of care. Section 174 sets a minimum objective standard - the care, skill and diligence reasonably expected of someone carrying out your functions - and then raises it if you personally have more knowledge or experience. Being unpaid, part time and new does not lower the floor.
• You inherit the company's position, not the previous board's excuses. A breach that finished before you arrived is theirs. A breach that is still running - an overdue fire risk assessment, an unconsulted long term contract, a demand that was never validly served - becomes yours the day you take office, and "I only just joined" is not an answer to a continuing failure.

There is also a new administrative duty that catches every incoming director. Since 18 November 2025, under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, identity verification at Companies House is a legal requirement: new directors verify their identity in order to be appointed to an existing company, and continuing directors confirm their verification when the company files its next confirmation statement during a twelve month transition period that ends in November 2026. Acting as a director without being verified is an offence under section 167M of the Companies Act 2006, and the deferral only covers people who were already directors before 18 November 2025, so for anyone appointed now it applies from the day they take office. There is a second gate beside it: section 167N stops a director appointed after incorporation from acting if the company misses the fourteen day deadline for notifying the registrar of the appointment, and keeps them barred until that notice is filed, though the Act preserves the validity of anything they did in the meantime. Verification is free through GOV.UK One Login and produces a personal code you keep.

For a small residential company this is a live handover issue, not paperwork. If a long standing director has moved abroad, lost interest or simply stopped answering email and has never verified, that unresolved status sits between your company and its next confirmation statement - and an RMC that misses filings can end up in proposed strike off, which for a company that owns the freehold is an emergency. Collect every continuing director's personal code while the outgoing board is still reachable.

The handover protects the outgoing board too

It is worth saying this to them in those words, because a request for records can otherwise feel like an audit of their tenure. It is not. A documented handover is how a retiring director actually finishes the job.

• It ends their exposure cleanly. A director who resigns leaving no record of what was decided and why is the person who gets telephoned in two years when a leaseholder challenges a charge from their period. A file that shows the quotes obtained, the advice taken and the minute recording the decision is the best protection they will ever have.
• Their resignation has to be filed. Form TM01 within 14 days. Until it is, Companies House still shows them as a director, and so does every credit reference and search against the company.
• Directors' and officers' cover does not follow them out of the door by default. These policies are usually written on a claims made basis, so a claim brought after the policy lapses is not covered even if the conduct happened while it was live. Ask whether run off cover exists for the leavers, and whether the policy you are inheriting covers you for acts before your appointment or excludes prior acts. The answer materially changes what you are walking into.
• Nobody wants an unfinished consultation to be their legacy. Most gaps you find will be capacity, not concealment. Volunteers get ill, move, get overwhelmed by a leak in flat 9. Frame it that way and you will get more, not less.

The handover pack: what to ask for

Ask for all of it in one written request, then accept it in whatever order it arrives. If a managing agent holds most of it, copy them in - and note that anything held on the company's behalf belongs to the company, not to the agent's software.

Company and constitution

• The articles of association, as currently filed. Not the model articles, not what someone remembers. They decide who can be a member, how directors are appointed and removed, what a quorum is and whether the company can indemnify you.
• The register of members, and the share certificates if it is a company limited by shares. In an RMC, membership usually travels with the lease, and registers that drifted out of step with the Land Registry titles are common. Since 18 November 2025 companies no longer keep their own registers of directors, secretaries or persons with significant control: that information now sits at Companies House, so check the filed position there rather than asking for a register the company is no longer required to hold.
• Companies House filing position - confirmation statement date, accounts due date, any late filing penalty, any proposed strike off, and the registered office and registered email address.
• The company's authentication code, and every continuing director's personal code. Whoever holds the authentication code controls the filings.
• Minutes and resolutions for at least the last three years, though the Companies Act requires minutes of directors' meetings and members' resolutions to be kept for ten, including AGM minutes and any written resolutions.

The leases

• A complete specimen lease, plus every lease that differs. Blocks extended or converted in phases often have two or three lease forms, and the apportionments may not total 100 per cent.
• Every deed of variation, and any lease varied by the First-tier Tribunal under sections 35 to 37 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.
• The service charge machinery specifically: what is recoverable, the apportionment method, the accounting period, the due dates, and whether the lease actually permits a reserve fund. A reserve collected without lease authority is a problem you inherit.

Money

• Three years of service charge accounts with whatever certification the lease requires, plus the current year budget against actual spend to date.
• The arrears ledger, aged, by unit - not a single total. See below on why this one matters more than any other number.
• Reserve fund balance and where it is held. Service charge contributions are held on a statutory trust under section 42 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, so ask for the account name, the latest statement and the last reconciliation, and confirm the money is not mixed with company or personal funds.
• Bank mandate and signatories, including any signatory who has already resigned, and any director who has been funding the company personally.
• Corporation tax position and any HMRC correspondence. Trust income and company income are treated differently, and dormant treatment is often assumed rather than confirmed.

Demands and the paperwork that makes them payable

• A copy of an actual demand as issued, not the accounting entry. Check it carries the landlord's name and their own address, not the managing agent's, on the demand under section 47 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, that an address in England and Wales for the service of notices has been given under section 48, and that the prescribed summary of rights and obligations under section 21B of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is attached. Miss the name and address, or the section 48 address, and the sum is treated as not being due until it is supplied; miss the summary and the leaseholder can withhold payment. The two Acts define "landlord" differently, and it matters on a tripartite lease. For the section 21B summary the 1985 Act reaches anyone with a right to enforce payment of a service charge, so if the company can enforce it, that duty is the company's own. Sections 47 and 48 use the 1987 Act's narrower "immediate landlord", so where the service charge is payable to a management company that is not the reversioner, those sections may not reach the demand at all. Do not concede that a historical demand was unpayable without checking which of the two you are dealing with.
• Anything demanded more than eighteen months after the cost was incurred. Section 20B of the 1985 Act bars recovery unless the leaseholder was notified in writing within eighteen months that the cost had been incurred and would be charged. Ask whether any section 20B(2) notices were served, and keep them.
• Any request under section 21 or section 22 of the 1985 Act. These are different rights - a summary of costs, and inspection of the documents behind it - and an unanswered request is an open dispute rather than old post.

Consultation in flight

• Every section 20 consultation started in the last three years, complete or not, with the notices as served and the dates.
• Any qualifying long term agreement, meaning a contract for more than twelve months. If consultation was not completed, recovery is capped at £250 per leaseholder for qualifying works and £100 per leaseholder per accounting period under a qualifying long term agreement, unless the tribunal grants dispensation. An unfinished consultation on a major works project is the single most expensive thing you can inherit unknowingly.

Contracts

• Every live contract with its expiry date and notice period: managing agent, insurance broker, cleaning, grounds, lifts, door entry, fire alarm and emergency lighting, communal utilities, waste.
• The managing agent's terms of engagement in full, including the fee basis, what sits outside the fee, notice to terminate, and what happens to the data and the records on termination.

Insurance

• The buildings policy schedule, not the certificate: sum insured, excesses, conditions, endorsements and whether leaseholders' interests are noted.
• The date of the last reinstatement cost assessment. Sum insured figures that have only been index linked for a decade are a common route to underinsurance.
• Claims history for three years, including open claims and anything declined.
• Directors' and officers' cover, employers' liability if anyone is employed even occasionally, engineering inspection cover for lifts, and terrorism cover where relevant.

Safety and compliance

• The fire risk assessment and its action list, showing which significant findings are outstanding and why. The assessment is the easy part; the actions are the duty. Duties sit with the responsible person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, as amended by the Fire Safety Act 2021, together with the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022.
• Building Safety Act 2022 position if the building is higher-risk - at least 18 metres or at least seven storeys, with two or more residential units - including registration with the Building Safety Regulator, the accountable person, and the safety case.
• Residential evacuation duties. The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 came into force on 6 April 2026 and reach buildings well below the higher-risk threshold, including blocks over 11 metres operating a simultaneous evacuation strategy. Ask what has been done, not whether anyone has heard of them.
• Asbestos survey and register for the common parts, with the management plan. The duty to manage sits in regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.
• The routine cycle: legionella risk assessment, lift thorough examination, electrical installation condition report for the landlord's supply, gas safety for any communal plant, emergency lighting and alarm servicing records.
• Remediation status - any external wall survey, any application to a remediation fund, any developer correspondence, and whether leaseholder protections under the Building Safety Act have been assessed for your building.

Disputes, history and data

• Any First-tier Tribunal application, decided or live. A determination under section 27A of the 1985 Act about what is payable binds the parties, and a board that charges on regardless of one is heading straight back.
• County court claims, arrears enforcement, forfeiture correspondence, and any complaint to a redress scheme about the agent.
• Alterations consented to informally. Every removed wall, new bathroom above a bedroom or hard floor agreed verbally over a decade is an undocumented breach you now own. Our guide to licences to alter covers why the paperwork matters at sale.
• The leaseholder and resident contact data, with a note of where it lives. The company is a data controller in its own right, so ask how the data can be exported if the agent changes, and what retention applies.

The questions to ask, and what the answers tell you

Documents tell you what was done. Questions tell you what was understood. Ask these in a meeting, take notes, and treat a hesitant answer as a place to look rather than as a verdict on the person answering.

• "Can I see the arrears aged by unit?" A good answer is a schedule. A single total tells you nothing, and it hides the pattern that matters: one unit owing three years is a different building from twelve units each a quarter behind. The first is an enforcement decision nobody wanted to take; the second is a demand or communication problem. Then ask the follow up: if the reserve fund and the arrears are similar numbers, is the reserve real money or is it the arrears?
• "What is outstanding on the fire risk assessment action list, and what is the reason?" Having an assessment is not the same as acting on it, and cost is a perfectly legitimate reason for a delay as long as it was a decision rather than an oversight. What you want to know is whether there is a plan.
• "Which contracts run longer than twelve months, and were they consulted on?" This is the question that surfaces qualifying long term agreements, and the £100 per leaseholder per accounting period cap that applies if consultation was missed.
• "Has anything been demanded more than eighteen months after it was spent?" If the answer is "possibly", check before you demand anything else that touches the same period.
• "Is there directors' and officers' cover, and does it exclude prior acts?" Ask for the wording. This is the question new directors most often forget and most regret forgetting.
• "When was the sum insured last assessed by a valuer rather than indexed?" An answer of "the broker adjusts it each year" means it has not been assessed.
• "What would a leaseholder take to the tribunal tomorrow, and would we be comfortable?" Most outgoing directors answer this honestly and quickly, because they have been living with it. It is the single most informative question on the list.
• "Who holds the authentication code, the bank mandate, the company email and any domain?" Access has a way of leaving with the person, and a company that cannot file or bank is stuck in a way that is tedious to unpick.
• "Is everyone resigning, and has TM01 been filed?" Check the articles for the minimum number of directors and the quorum before the board empties. A single remaining director who cannot form a quorum cannot validly do very much.
• "What did you not get to?" Ask it last, ask it plainly, and let the silence run. This is usually where you learn the most.

Reading the answers: signs of a difficult year ahead

None of these say anything about the people who came before you. They describe the condition of a building and a set of records, which is the thing you actually need to assess.

• No reserve fund, a roof or lift near the end of its life, and no maintenance plan. This is the classic sequence: a section 20 consultation in your first year, a large demand attached to your name, and a great deal of anger that has been accumulating since long before you agreed to help. Our guide to planned maintenance for blocks of flats sets out the cycles to plan against.
• A budget that has barely moved in five years. Insurance and contractor costs have; the gap is a catch up demand waiting to be issued.
• Demands missing the statutory wording. Fixable going forward, and worth establishing before you enforce anything historical, since depending on which duty was missed and who the charge was payable to, some sums may not have been lawfully payable when they were demanded.
• Accounts or confirmation statements overdue. Strike off risk, and if the company owns the freehold, a risk that the freehold passes to the Crown as bona vacantia.
• Compliance records that exist as certificates but not as a schedule. If nobody can say when the next legionella review or lift examination is due, the building is being managed reactively and the next surprise is only a matter of timing.
• A pattern of informal consents and verbal agreements. Not a scandal, but it means the written record understates what has actually happened to the building.

If it is an RTM company, five things are different

A right to manage company takes over management functions by statute under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. It does not own the building, and that changes the handover.

• Your articles are prescribed. RTM companies use the model articles set by the RTM Companies (Model Articles) (England) Regulations 2009. There is far less to discover than in an RMC, and much less room to have drifted.
• The landlord is entitled to membership. They are part of the company you now direct, which is a different political reality from an RMC where the members are the leaseholders alone.
• Approvals involve the landlord. Consents that the lease gives the landlord - alterations, subletting and similar - pass to the RTM company under long leases of the whole or any part of the premises, except where the approval concerns only a flat or other unit not held under a lease by a qualifying tenant. The landlord must be given notice and a period to object first: thirty days for assignment, underletting, charging, parting with possession, structural alterations or improvements, and alterations of use, fourteen otherwise. If the landlord objects in time the company cannot grant the approval at all without their written agreement or a tribunal determination. Ask how that has been handled in practice, because it is commonly missed.
• You manage, you do not own, but repairs are still yours. This is the most commonly inverted point about RTM. Section 96 of the 2002 Act defines management functions as functions with respect to services, repairs, maintenance, improvements, insurance and management, and makes the landlord's management functions under the lease those of the RTM company instead. Where a third party such as an existing management company is a party to the lease, its management functions transfer too. So the structure and common parts are normally yours to run and to budget for, subject to what the lease actually puts on the landlord: anything the lease leaves to the leaseholder to repair, windows and balconies being the usual candidates, does not come with the transfer. Ownership and ground rent stay behind because they are not management functions at all. Two things are expressly carved out by section 96(6): re-entry and forfeiture, and functions concerning only a unit not held by a qualifying tenant, such as a commercial unit or a landlord-retained flat. Ask for the boundary as the previous board understood it, in writing, because a board that believes the freeholder still owns the roof will not have been putting money aside for it.
• The landlord keeps a stake, and owes you the money from day one. Section 97 makes every obligation the company owes a tenant under section 96 also owed to the landlord, so the freeholder can hold you to the repairing obligation; it stops the landlord, a third party to the lease and any tribunal-appointed manager doing what the company is required or empowered to do except by agreement, though it expressly preserves their right to insure the premises at their own expense; and it leaves behind service charges required to meet costs incurred before the acquisition date. Section 94 is the one to check hardest at handover: the landlord, any third party to the lease and any manager appointed by the tribunal under Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 must pay the RTM company the accrued uncommitted service charges held on the acquisition date, net of whatever is needed to meet costs already incurred before that date. It falls due on the acquisition date or as soon after as is reasonably practicable, with the tribunal available if the sum is disputed. That is usually the largest single number in an RTM handover, and a board that never asked for it has started life underfunded without knowing why.

If the claim itself is recent or contested, our explainer on how the RTM claim process works covers what transfers and when.

A note if the developer still controls the board

On a newer development the handover is a different animal. The developer's appointees typically resign once enough units are sold, and what arrives with the company is a snagging position rather than a filing history: latent defects, warranty cover and its claim deadlines, roads and drainage that may not yet be adopted, landscaping bonds, estate rentcharges on any freehold houses, and a first budget that was set to look attractive to buyers rather than to run the estate. Ask specifically for the defects schedule, the warranty documents and the adoption position, and treat the first full year's budget as an unknown rather than a baseline. That handover has its own timing and its own traps, so it has its own guide: taking over a new build RMC from the developer.

Your first ninety days

• Before you are appointed. Verify your identity at Companies House and give the company your personal code, because the appointment filing needs it and section 167M bites from the day you take office.
• Weeks one and two. Check the Companies House record shows the board correctly and that TM01s are filed. Confirm the filing dates and clear anything overdue. Get on the bank mandate.
• Weeks three to six. Send the written request for the pack. Read the lease properly once, end to end. Get the insurance schedule and the fire risk assessment action list in front of the board, because those two carry the fastest moving risk.
• Weeks seven to twelve. Build one calendar covering statutory filings, insurance renewal, compliance reviews and contract notice dates. Write the arrears position down as a schedule and agree a policy for it. Minute the state you inherited - not to apportion blame, but because in two years it will be the only record of where the line falls.

What is coming next

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 will require landlords to give leaseholders a standardised annual report on the building and a new prescribed service charge demand form. Those provisions are not in force: the government has said the transparency measures will be brought in through several statutory instruments, with commencement expected from 2027. Nothing in this article depends on them, but the direction is clear enough that a board building the habit now will not have to build it twice.

The bottom line

A handover is not an investigation. It is the moment the building's memory moves from one set of volunteers to the next, and it is the only chance to do it while the people who hold that memory are still in the room. Ask for the pack in writing, ask the ten questions out loud, and write down what you find. The version of you sitting in a tribunal hearing in three years, or simply answering an angry email about a bill set before you arrived, will be glad of every line of it.

Keeping it all in one place afterwards is the other half of the job. Marklet gives a self-managed board a shared document store, a recurring compliance calendar and a record of who decided what and when, so the next handover is a login rather than an archaeology project.