Service charge and running the building

How many people share a building

Every building in this project has 14 residential floors with 6 units on each — 84 flats. At four people to a flat that is more than three hundred and fifty residents in one building. Service charge is simply how that many households split what they share.

Where the money goes

The amount differs building to building, but the categories do not. This list follows what the buildings in this project are actually built with.

• Lifts — routine servicing and an annual contract. In a 15-storey building this is not discretionary.
• Generator and substation — fuel, maintenance, load testing.
• Water pumps, the underground reservoir and overhead tank cleaning.
• Security — staffing the guard room and reception in shifts.
• Cleaning — stairs, lift lobbies, corridors, basement parking.
• Annual testing of the fire-fighting reservoir and hydrants.
• Electricity for common areas — stairs, lobbies, parking, lifts.
• A sinking fund, for the large costs: repainting, pump replacement, a lift overhaul.

That last line is the one most often left out, and the consequence arrives five or seven years later, when a lift overhaul suddenly requires a large one-off collection from every flat. A small monthly transfer into a sinking fund removes that shock entirely.

Committees, and the transparency problem

Most buildings in Bangladesh are run not by a professional management company but by a rotating volunteer committee of residents. The advantage is cost. The disadvantage is that the accounts often live in one person’s notebook, or on one person’s phone.

The trouble surfaces at handover between committees. Who has paid, what was spent in which month, what is left in the fund — if none of that is written where everyone can see it, the incoming committee starts from nothing and the outgoing one leaves under a cloud it may not deserve.

What reduces the arguments

• Write the service charge formula down — equal per flat, or by area or floor.
• Publish income and expenditure every month, where every resident can see it.
• No money in without a receipt; no money out without a receipt.
• Hold a bank account in the building’s name, never in an individual’s.
• Take at least two quotes before any large expense, and minute the decision.
• Hand over the accounts and the documents formally when the committee changes.

All of this works on paper. It just gets harder as the number of flats grows — which is what the next guide is about.