About CW Estates
3 October 2026
CW Estates - Who are we and what do we do
CW Estates was formed in 2020 by the UK’s largest Right to Manage (RTM) Company, which is responsible for 906 apartments. It was born out of frustration and distrust of managing agents who provided poor, expensive services and had taken funds from leaseholders that they were not entitled to. In many ways, it reflected a situation where managing agents are not necessarily qualified nor in some cases capable of effectively dealing with the many challenges that face leaseholders in high rise apartment blocks.
CW Estates is a company limited by guarantee. It does not have shareholders and is not therefore driven by the need to make profits for dissemination to those shareholders. It has a small group of Directors and staff who cover finance, property maintenance, HR and an MD who has a long career managing large multi-faceted organisations with thousands of staff and a multi £million budget. CW Estates also works hard to foster long term partnerships with locally based specialists covering maintenance, energy, fire safety, comms, property defects and law.
In 2022, CW Estates were able to assist 850 leaseholders in a dispute with their freeholder who wanted to increase ground rents by up to 157% following a 21 year review under their leases. 850 counter notices were served on the freeholder and after an 18 month dispute, the freeholder gave in and reduced increases to just 11%. This saved leaseholders over £1millionin ground rents. This victory is considered rare against a freeholder and their expert advisers.
CW Estates has also developed a bespoke full service charge IT system. This provides real time information on income and expenditure so RTM directors know exactly where their budgets are at any given time. This ensures that budgets are managed well to avoid overspends and yet undertake essential work on site. Along with professional budgeting, CW Estates aims to ensure that sites are well maintained and do not fall into disrepair or look unsightly. We take pride in our work and pride in the sites we manage. We have taken on numerous unkempt sites and worked with volunteer directors to address problems, including broken fences, untidy refuse areas, security lights not working, broken doors, poor cleaning regimes, lack of decorating etc.
Whilst not created to take on additional sites, since 2020, CW Estates has been approached by leaseholders from over a dozen other sites around Cardiff and as far away as London and Newcastle. It has provided advice and guidance to hundreds of leaseholders, guiding them on how to challenge extremely high service charges, how to legally demand budget information and ultimately how to take control of their blocks by going for RTM status.
CW Estates has also provided its expertise to take on other sites across Cardiff. It now manages nearly 1,500 properties and has taken on sites that have been incredibly badly managed by previous agents. In one case, leaseholders in 3 blocks were left in a bankruptcy position after their agent walked away having totally and in leaseholders’ view negligently caused their reserves to be wiped out, their insurance quadrupled and their energy costs increased 10 fold. Their accounts were two years late and they had no idea what had happened to their funds. Having agreed to take the site on, Directors at CW Estates had sorted out two years’ worth of accounts within a matter of weeks, brought energy costs down from £40,000 a year to just £4,000 a year. CW Estates also reduced insurance costs from £84,000 to £29,000 and as a result of all this, service charge were reduced by 15% after just one year. Furthermore, service charges were frozen the following year. Taking inflation into account service charges fell over 20% in real terms in just two years.
CW Estates has significant experience in dealing with building defects, including fire related defects. Its officers have successfully fought insurers and developers – in one case winning £576,000 for leaseholders of one block of apartments. CW Estates have recently negotiated a £300,000 sum for another block, where the original developer has now agreed to remediate defective balconies. Directors have also taken insurers to the Ombudsman for leaseholders and won a case where the insurer claimed its policy did not cover defective roadways. The Ombudsman agreed with CW Estates that the policy did provide such cover and leaseholders benefitted from having the roadway fully remediated at no cost.
On fire related matters, CW Estates has managed £20million of contracts for major developers to undertake internal and external remediation at no cost to leaseholders. CW Estates have put together a team of specialist consultants including surveyors, architects, QS, Fire Engineers, fire door contractors and structural engineers. CW Estates are well known to Welsh Government ministers and senior officials. They understand the depth of experience within the company. CW Estates have also recovered money for leaseholders who had been asked to pay for fire related works, which is unlawful.
The Right to Manage Federation (RTMF) knows the work that CW Estates undertakes and is appreciative of the assistance we provide to leaseholders seeking to take control of their buildings. We have worked with the RTMF to guide hundreds of leaseholders through the RTM legal process.
Unlike most managing agents, CW Estates does not charge exorbitant fees for undertaking keys tasks. For example, consent to let fees are often charged at hundreds of £s. This is highly exorbitant and unnecessary in our view. A modest charge of £60 is made for first consent given. For a subsequent letting a fee of just £30 is charged and where a tenant just renews a fee of just £15 is made. A pet consent is also just £15. We are aware of agents locally who charge up to £189 for such consents
CW Estates prides itself as being a responsive agent. Calls are answered in person and where urgent, we will have a member of staff on site at an apartment within minutes if an emergency. It is one of the things that leaseholders we take on are most impressed with. Often it is difficult to speak to anyone from an agent’s office, emails go unanswered and no one takes responsibility. Our office is in Cardiff. Our staff are based in Cardiff and we pride ourselves on speaking to and meeting leaseholders for whom we provide a service.
CW Estates also looks to work closely with RTM or RMC leaseholder volunteer directors. We provide advice and guidance. We are happy to attend leaseholder meetings and we help to guide volunteer directors to set realistic budgets that maintain the site and deal with important issues such as security and safety. We work hard to keep any increases in service charges to a minimum and we work incredibly hard to avoid any in year additional charges or year end charges. This is an exception, not the rule, as with so many agents who just don’t appreciate that it is leaseholders who have to find additional money if they don’t manage the site properly.
Our Team
Mark James CBE, LLB(Hons), LLM, DCA
Mark has vast experience of managing public and private organisations. As a Chief Executive of Councils in England and Wales for over 25 years, he managed over 14,000 staff, a budget of £700million, 140 schools, a £1billion property portfolio and a vehicle fleet of 700 vehicles and 10,000 homes. Awarded his CBE by the late Queen, Mark was renowned for highly successful regeneration schemes across West Wales and for 5 years was a Welsh Government Director chairing its Corporate Governance Committee. Mark also led on the £5billion schools building programme in Wales. Having managed 10,000 houses and investing £230million in their modernisation, Mark brought a wealth of experience to the RTM and then CW Estates when he retired from the Council. He is extremely well versed in leading complex organisations and strategically managing adversarial and legally difficult situations. These skills have proven valuable to leaseholders taking on freeholders or negligent managing agents, insurers or developers.
Ryan Howells, Director of Finance
Ryan has some 30 years of experience across charitable, public and private sector companies. He has been instrumental in setting up the new bespoke service charge IT system. He has worked closely with our IT developer to ensure that it provides first class information in real time. Ryan has become an expert in understanding the complexities of service charge accounts and has helped a number of our client sites to unravel accounts that were in a mess or even to complete accounts for sites where other agents had failed year after year, leaving leaseholders unaware of what money they had or where their money had been spent. Ryan and his team also ensure that all leaseholders pay their service charges and where they don’t, works closely with solicitors to take appropriate action
Owein Mattey, Director of Property
Owein has 17 years of property management experience in high rise blocks. He and his team ensure that blocks are well maintained, safe and secure. Owein works with a number of key contractors, having built long term relationships based and consistency and quality service. With regular inspections and prompt action to understand problems, Owein is well versed in dealing with leaks, electrical issues, decorating, fire systems and lifts. Owein and his team work hard to tender work and drive down costs whilst maintaining high quality services. His flexible and pragmatic approach to issues and preference to attend site to talk direct to leaseholders and volunteer RTM Directors provides reassurance and professionalism.
Patty Nowak, BA(Hons), MA, GDL, Chartered CIPD
Patty is our HR Director provided high level employment and legal advice where sites have staff. Awarded the Rising Star award by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, she epitomises our hands on professional approach to property management. Our staff are well qualified, experienced and supported. They are given the tools, training and support they need to do the job. Sites provide different challenges and we provide different tailor made solutions. Patty’s expertise assists in this respect, ensuring a flexible staffing solution where required. In house solutions are preferred, but external contractors are also used where appropriate. Staff are valued and their opinions sought to ensure bespoke quality services.
We do not operate a silo approach and any member of staff will take responsibility for a call, ensuring that the leaseholder is listened to and information passed on to the appropriate Director or other member of the Team. We are a relatively small team that will pitch in to solve issues as they arise. We take a pride in what we do and will not take on a site if we do not think we can provide a well-resourced first class service.
We are happy for any prospective client to speak to any of the Directors at sites we manage. It is their views of what we do for them that really matters, not what we think of ourselves.
Address
CW Estates
Concierge Office
Century Wharf
Chandlery Way
Cardiff
CF10 5NG
