Property management companies’ representatives have suggested the government include in the condominium regime that property management fees can be adjusted according to changes in the rate of inflation, said the head of the second permanent committee of the Legislative Assembly, Chan Chak Mo, yesterday. Mr. Chan’s committee has met with two local trade chambers of property management firms yesterday for its deliberation of a bill on the horizontal property regime – in other words, the condominium regime – to minimise disputes in self-managed buildings. One suggestion from the management firms’ representatives for the bill is that property management fees be adjusted to inflation rate changes as reference for the renewal of property management contracts signed with condominium owners. Mr. Chan said, however, that legislators have doubts on whether the suggestion could be realised. “There were opinions that doubted whether the government should intervene in the increase of property management costs by legal regulation, which would affect the free market,” Mr. Chan told media following a closed-door discussion with trade representatives. The sub-committee head said there would be further discussions on the regulation of property management cost in the ensuing deliberation of the bill. Property Management Business Association Macao president Paul Tse, who attended the meeting with the legislators, has highlighted the problem of the absence of an owners’ committee or property management committee for the majority of residential buildings here. “The lack of these committees means that there is no platform for owners and property management companies to negotiate how to adjust their property management fees,” Mr. Tse told media. “This creates the problem that the property management fees of many of these buildings has not been adjusted in accordance with rising operation costs for years.” The condominium bill that is being deliberated now regulates the setting up of a property management committee. The bill spells out that any meetings concerning the appointment of a property management committee member has to be certified by the supervisory organ, the Housing Bureau. This suggested legal requirement has been welcomed by the Property Management Business Association, Mr. Tse said. Minimum wage Some of the property management companies here, which have not adjusted their management fees for a long time, have been reliant upon the government’s wage subsidy scheme to pay their workers in past years prior to the implementation of the minimum wage applied exclusively to property management staff on January 1, Mr. Tse said. The wage subsidy scheme, in practice since 2008, was a provisional measure meant to compensate the city’s low-income group. But the scheme has already halted following the implementation of the minimum wage law which came into effect at the beginning of this year. “Some of the property management companies used to pay their staff [cleaning and security workers] only a monthly MOP2,000 to MOP3,000 when the government was practising the wage subsidy scheme because the government could subsidise another MOP2,000 of their pay,” Mr. Tse explained, noting that these companies have not adjusted their management costs for years. “But now as the work subsidy scheme is no longer in practice, the companies have to pay their staff at least MOP6,240 a month as the law requires,” he added. “As a result, they greatly enhance the management fees [since the beginning of this year] because of the minimum wage.”
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