Property Management Practice and Maintenance
Managing the asset
Good practice follows a cycle: asset register, condition survey, planned preventive maintenance (PPM) plan, lifecycle costing, budget, delivery, review. Classify work as reactive, planned, cyclical or compliance - each needs an owner, a timescale and a written record. A five-year PPM plan linked to the reserve fund avoids unpleasant special levies and gives the s.20 programme time to run properly.
Procurement
Define the need in a specification, choose the route (quotations, selective or open tender), pre-qualify contractors on insurance and accreditations such as CHAS or SafeContractor, evaluate on quality as well as price, then award, mobilise and manage. Monitor with KPIs - response times, completion rates, complaint volumes - and validate invoices against the purchase order and against what the lease actually allows you to recover. Under a JCT-style contract, 5% retention is typical: half released at practical completion, half after the defects period.
Records and handover
Keep O&M manuals, warranties, as-built drawings and service records. They support insurance claims, future tenders, dilapidations and any tribunal that asks you to prove a cost was reasonably incurred.
Traps
Questions often plant a "repair" that is really a qualifying work, triggering s.20. Others confuse reserve fund contributions with the annual service charge, or assume the cheapest tender must be accepted. A cost can be genuinely incurred yet irrecoverable because the lease excludes it or caps the management fee.
Rule of thumb
If the work improves rather than repairs, the lease must authorise it and consultation applies to the tenants' contribution - consult early, because retro-fitting the process is expensive and usually fatal.