Why did Shanghai Kangcheng fire Country Garden Property?
Recently, the news that the property management company of Shanghai Kangcheng, the largest residential community in Shanghai, was "fired" has attracted attention. According to the latest media reports, Country Garden Services expressed its deep apologies for the failure of Shengfu Property Services to obtain the approval of the owners and the property management committee of Shanghai Kangcheng in the previous stage. In mid-August, Country Garden Services has made rectifications, including replacing the president of the Shanghai region and upgrading the jurisdiction of the Kangcheng project to the direct management of the group.
Shanghai Kangcheng is the largest residential area in Shanghai, with a population of nearly 50,000. With a size 10 times that of an ordinary residential area, this community has always attracted much attention in the field of community governance. From the perspective of negotiations between the community and the property management company, it is normal for the property management company to choose not to renew the contract after the expiration of the contract. The property management service contract between Shengfu Property Management and Shanghai Kangcheng started in 2013 and was in the actual service state after it expired in June last year. It is reasonable that the new property management committee intends to restart the selection of the next stage of the property management company after the old contract expires.
Property services are a very important part of modern urban life. The level of property services not only affects the daily living experience of community owners, but is also a key factor in whether the community can maintain and increase the value of houses. Therefore, in recent years, more and more commercial housing communities will choose to terminate the service contract with the original property company after the property service period expires, and try to hire a better property company to serve the community. The current property market is becoming more and more "competitive". In order to take over and increase the volume, some property companies often promise to "bring in funds" to improve the appearance of the community, which has also become a catalyst for many communities to hire new property companies.
It is worth noting that the Shanghai Kangcheng Property Owners Committee previously issued a "Communication and Rectification Letter on Shanghai Kangcheng Property Service Quality Issues", which listed complaints from community owners about the quality of community property services, involving community project maintenance, the age of security guards, inadequate cleaning and greening, delayed project settlement, etc. Such dissatisfaction is understandable, but looking at these individual items in detail, the blame cannot be entirely placed on the property.
For example, in the maintenance of community projects, the property management is only responsible for execution. Maintenance matters do need to be voted on by all owners or owners of the building, and the maintenance plan must be confirmed by the property management committee before implementation. Any obstacles in any link will lead to the inability to advance a certain maintenance. For example, in the description of problems involving engineering maintenance, there are situations such as "the same maintenance project is submitted repeatedly", "unimplemented maintenance projects are marked as 'completed'", "some maintenance projects are over-maintained", and "some maintenance projects have quotes that are significantly higher than previous similar maintenance projects".
Such "complaints" are very common in community maintenance, and the difficulty lies in the fact that "whether there is excessive maintenance and over-quotation" needs to be determined by a third party providing professional appraisal.
Because of my work, I have had contact with the Shanghai Kangcheng Residential Committee, the previous property owners' committee, and property management staff. For the new property owners' committee, how to introduce appropriate property management services through legal procedures is a new and beneficial attempt. But at the same time, rationally evaluating the property management services of the community and avoiding excessively raising the expectations of the owners for property management services are also very important for the subsequent operation of the community.
You know, for a community of the size of Shanghai Cannes, many problems cannot be solved by simply changing the property management.
The latest response from Country Garden Property Management also puzzled the outside world. After the first round of non-renewal results had already appeared, Country Garden tried to cut ties with the on-site service team and expressed its intention to make further rectifications around the previous complaints of the property management committee in order to impress the owners of the community in exchange for the opportunity to participate in the subsequent selection. This operation can only show that a community of the size of Cannes is a "big order" that any property management company is unwilling to give up. However, given that this behavior also means tacitly accepting the allegations of improper management in the early stage, the subsequent results are actually not optimistic.
According to the information I have learned, this "breakup" is not unrelated to the wave of mergers and acquisitions of property companies. An interesting detail is that Country Garden has separated itself from Shengfu Property in its statement, but an enthusiastic owner bluntly said that in the past ten years of property services provided by Shengfu, the service period was actually the "honeymoon period" for both parties.
Many owners still recall that during the epidemic, the front-line property staff supported the operation of a large community, taking on tasks such as receiving and sending express deliveries and delivering books to more than 3,000 primary school students in Cannes. It was also with the support of these services that the owners of Cannes, Shanghai, passed a vote to increase the price and renew the contract in 2020 - the property fee of Cannes increased from 1.5 yuan per square meter to 1.9 yuan per square meter. Don't underestimate this 40 cents. You should know that when Vanke Property took over another giant community in the center of Shanghai, COSCO Liangwan City, during the same period, it did not increase the price and has maintained a property fee of 1.75 yuan per square meter.
From the perspective of the industry, the Shanghai Kangcheng property speculation incident will serve as a reminder to merger-loving property companies like Country Garden: Although property companies can acquire residential communities through mergers, in specific services, besides brand, details still determine success or failure. How to prevent parachuted personnel from "not adapting to the local environment" in property projects is an issue that large property brands that try to expand their service territory through mergers cannot avoid.
