How to change the managing agent for your OMC in Ireland

Yes, and it is a board decision. An owners' management company (OMC) is a company whose business is managed by its directors (section 158, Companies Act 2014), so the board can appoint or dismiss the managing agent by resolution. Owners facing a reluctant board can remove a director by ordinary resolution on 28 days' notice (section 146).

Picture the board of a forty-eight-unit scheme in a commuter town spending two AGMs airing the same grievances: accounts that arrive late and half-explained, a sinking fund nobody can reconcile, phone calls that sit in voicemail for a fortnight. What such a board often has not realised, until one director reads the paperwork, is that it held the power to change the managing agent all along.

That surprises a lot of owners: the agent is the most visible face of the development, so the AGM feels like where the big calls get made. It is the natural forum to raise the issue, but the legal lever sits with the board you elected.

Who can change the managing agent: the board or the AGM?

Running the OMC's day-to-day affairs, including engaging or dismissing a managing agent, is a function of the directors. So the mechanism is a board resolution, minuted, not a motion put to every unit owner. Members do not vote to hire or fire the agent the way they vote on the annual service charge; the Companies Act only lets them direct the board by special resolution.

That does not leave owners powerless.

If the directors will not move, the members' lever is over the directors themselves: the AGM is where you hold the board to account, propose new candidates and, if it comes to it, change who sits on it. The cleanest route is to get the issue onto the agenda and arrive with alternative quotes in hand. A board that hears silence assumes consent; a board that hears three owners with a rival proposal tends to move.

Read the contract before you sign anyone new

Here is the rookie mistake that costs blocks a full extra year: signing an eager new agent before anyone has read the old agreement. The Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 requires every agent's agreement to state the length of notice either side must give to end it, the period the agreement runs for and the records the agent keeps (Schedule 2). Pull the engagement letter and find two clauses before you do anything else. The first is that notice period, which dictates how much warning you must give in writing. The second is any auto-renewal clause, which quietly rolls the contract into another fixed term unless you serve notice inside a specific window.

Miss that window and you are on the hook for another term with the very agent you wanted rid of. So work backwards from the renewal date, serve written notice with time to spare and keep the dated proof. A veteran director treats the notice letter like a legal deadline, because that is exactly what it is.

Once notice is validly served, the handover clock starts, and this is where a switch is won or lost.

What the outgoing agent must hand over

Managing agents in Ireland must hold a licence from the Property Services Regulatory Authority to provide property management services to an OMC (section 28 of the same Act). The records they hold on your development are the OMC's company records, and the agreement's own list of records kept is your starting point for demanding them back. Do not let the account walk out the door in someone's head. Build a written handover checklist and tick it off, dated and signed, rather than trusting a friendly promise to "send everything on". At a minimum it should capture:

• The full company and management accounts, plus the current arrears list showing who owes what
• Block insurance policy details, renewal dates and any open claims
• Signed AGM and board minutes, and the register of members
• Sinking-fund records and bank balances, held separately from the day-to-day account
• Keys, fobs, access codes and contractor contacts

Two of those lines deserve extra care, because they are the ones that quietly go missing. The arrears list ties directly to your service charge collection: inherit a vague figure and you inherit a hole. And the sinking-fund records tell the new agent what you have actually saved toward the roof and the lift, which is impossible to reconstruct after the fact.

New agent or self-manage? An honest readiness test

With the old agent on notice, you reach the real fork.

One road is a new managing agent: the price is the fee plus VAT at the standard rate of 23% (Revenue), an annual cost that buys professional continuity and someone whose job it is to chase arrears and file on time. The other road is self-management, where the board runs the OMC directly, keeps the fee in the fund and takes on the work itself. Self-managing is a genuine option for a smaller, stable block, but only if you pass an honest readiness test rather than a hopeful one. Ask the board these questions and answer them plainly:

• Do we have owners with the time and the finance or admin skills to keep the books and reconcile the accounts?
• Can we reliably file the CRO annual return on time, every year, and manage the audit or the audit-exemption paperwork?
• Will we chase arrears from our own neighbours, renew insurance and run a proper AGM without a professional to lean on?
• Is this resilient to one volunteer burning out or selling up and moving away?

If most answers are a confident yes, self-management can save a mid-sized block a real sum every year and community-management software such as Vecinly can carry the accounts, dues and minutes that used to justify the agent's fee; compare the agent's quote with our pricing. If the answers are shaky, a good agent is cheaper than the mess a lapsed filing or an unpaid insurance renewal creates. Be honest about which block you are; the wrong choice here does not announce itself until something breaks.

Regulation is coming, sort your governance now

There is a reason to get your house in order beyond this one switch. In November 2025 the Department of Housing said the Government plans to move responsibility for the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 to that department, to improve oversight of OMCs and to review the Act (gov.ie). That is a plan, not law: nothing has changed on paper yet.

But the direction of travel is clear and it favours OMCs that already keep clean accounts, real minutes and a funded reserve. A switch done properly (served on time, handed over in full, recorded) is exactly the governance a regulated future will expect.

Changing your managing agent is less a battle than a sequence: confirm it is the board's call, read the notice and auto-renewal clauses, insist on a complete handover and only then decide between a new agent and self-management on the evidence rather than the mood. Skip a step and you can spend a year tied to the arrangement you were trying to leave.

Information updated in September 2026. This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice.