Specialist Commercial Property Extranet Systems

Working as a Managing Agent responsible for the management of a large number of commercial properties means that among other things you have to answer questions and provide information about these properties. Providing endless copies of statements, invoices or any other document for that matter is not only tedious and boring but it is time consuming and costly for the management company. In some cases information has been provided before to the individual that has requested it and they have either lost or misplaced it.
It is true that the request can easily be delegated to another team member, however I for one don't like giving work to others just because I don't want to do it myself. I don't think that it sets a good example.
About 5 years ago I approached an IT company on behalf of the firm that I was working for about building an Extranet system. This system was to be used only by our "on site" staff and was ring fenced from the general public or external organisations. The cost £20K!! Clearly this was just not going to happen, not only was it cost prohibitive but it did not do everything we wanted. I was keen to develop my own system based on what I know a Managing Agent needs.
When I left the firm to set up McNeil Commercial one of the drivers was so that I could explore with freedom two projects without any conflict of interest. One of the projects is still eating away a me and is currently on ice. The other project was to develop a secure property related extranet system that could be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world provided they have been given access rights. This Extranet would allow users to access property documents, obtain answers to commonly asked questions and generally aid in the management, sale or acquisition of commercial property.
When a commercial property such as a shopping centre, office block or industrial estate is being sold there are dozens of documents that need to be completed or provided to the vendors solicitor so that they can be given to the purchasers solicitor as part of the due diligence process or simply in response to pre-acquisition replies to enquiries. Providing this information takes too much time the traditional way and delays the completion of the transaction. In some cases the delays can be fatal to the transaction. I saw an opportunity to improve this inefficiency.
Information required to buy or sell a property comes from multiple sources some of it from third party contractors, surveyors, consultants, other team members located in other offices. This information has to be emailed faxed or sent by post and there are costs associated with this method of sharing. Not only does it costs money in terms of stationery and postage but there are time delays when it comes to actually receiving the information.
I discussed the idea with Andrew Twigg at the Bath Business Club and he told me about the many similar non property related projects that he had implemented as a specialist in this field of IT. I said I want to create an easy to use ready to go product that solved the above problems.
Property Document Vault (PDV) was born shortly thereafter. PDV's structure comes from a combination of my knowledge about what Landlords and managing agents want and need and Andrew's IT expertise in developing and managing extranet systems. PDV comes ready to go and can be used straight away by landlords and managing agents without costly consultants fees or software development.
PDV is a secure vault that allows people to collaborate, access or upload sensitive property related documents via the web. PDV unlike other extranet systems runs with the property regardless who the managing agent or solicitor is. It is a great product that will become a hallmark for the efficient management of property.