How to change the managing agent for your OMC in Ireland

The board of a forty-eight-unit scheme in a commuter town spent two AGMs airing the same grievances, accounts that arrived late and half-explained, a sinking fund nobody could reconcile, phone calls that sat in voicemail for a fortnight. What none of them realised, until one director finally read the paperwork, was that they had held the power to change the managing agent all along. In an Irish OMC, replacing the agent is a board decision: the directors can appoint and dismiss the managing agent themselves and it does not need a majority vote of the owner-members.

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?

An OMC is a company under the Companies Act 2014, and running its 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.

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. Pull the engagement letter or management agreement and find two clauses before you do anything else. The first is the notice period (commonly 30 to 90 days) which dictates how much warning you must give in writing. The second is the 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 are licensed under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 and answer to the Property Services Regulatory Authority. That licensing matters at handover, because a departing agent is not doing you a favour by returning your records: they are the OMC's property and the agent is obliged to transfer them. 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 23% VAT, 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. 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. The 2025 Programme for Government commits to moving responsibility for the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 to the Department of Housing and to establishing a unit within the Housing Agency to regulate OMCs. As of mid-2026 that is a commitment and stakeholder engagement, not law: there is no Bill or amending scheme yet, so nothing has changed on paper.

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 so you do not kick the can into another term, insist on a complete PSRA handover and only then decide between a new agent and self-management on the evidence rather than the mood. Do it in that order and the switch is clean. Skip a step and you can spend a year and a good deal of money, tied to the arrangement you were trying to leave.

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