The Essential Building Handover Checklist

The first few days of operating a residential development are crucial to success. If you start on the right foot, making sure every aspect of your building has gone through quality assurance and can be well-maintained, you create a more efficient environment — both financially and in terms of property maintenance.

To ensure your development is operating to its full potential from the start, you need a building handover checklist.

What is a Building Handover Checklist?

A building handover checklist is the essential guide that guarantees your BTR or PBSA property is running at its peak from the moment residents move in. If you’re taking over an existing development, a building handover checklist outlines everything that needs to be checked and maintained to ensure there are no bumps in the transition period.

Why is a Building Handover Checklist so Important?

When the Head Developer of a residential building hands the keys over to the Operations team, there needs to be an in-depth meeting between the two parties first. However, conversations vital to the success of the development are often forgone.

The BTR sector in the UK is still young and growing. It’s all too easy to overlook these discussions simply because developers and operators in the industry are still gaining necessary experience.

With a building handover checklist, nothing is missed in the transition phase, which ultimately saves a great deal of time and money when it comes to repairs and maintenance.

But even putting together a complete checklist can be difficult without the right knowledge. As Fjeld Consulting has decades worth of experience through our work in the US multifamily sector, our Soft Landings service will ensure your BTR/PBSA is operating as efficiently as possible.

Your Building Handover Checklist

There are two essential aspects to any building handover checklist:

• The asset register
• The contract database

Each aspect is a comprehensive way of breaking down all you need to know about your building so it’s significantly more manageable. Below, we discuss the asset register and contract database in more detail:

Asset Register

The asset register is a list of everything installed in your BTR or PBSA development. It will provide you with details such as:

• The asset type (eg. boiler, smoke alarm, lift)
• Make/model
• Location
• Date installed

Here’s an example of how an asset register looks:

The Soft Landings service also comes with details on how to maintain your assets as required by law and with industry best practices in mind. This way, you know what the legal requirements are and the advisable data to ensure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

Contract Database

With a complete asset register, Fjeld Consulting then runs a competitive tender exercise on your behalf, splitting the assets into procurement lots such as:

• Fire safety
• Lift maintenance
• Electrical maintenance
• High level safety equipment
• Mechanical maintenance
• Access control

We find the most cost-effective, reliable providers for your maintenance services, so you can be sure that your development doesn’t run over budgeted operational expenditure and caters to the needs of all your assets.

With your providers in place, we then input the contract data in a user-friendly database. This will help you stay on top of renewal dates and maintenance schedules, with push notifications reminding you of key dates.

Using a contract database will also give you the data and reports needed to make more informed decisions. As an example, if you’re calling out a lift engineer more often than expected and paying callout charges, you may decide to switch providers when your contract comes to an end.

Our Soft Landings service will ensure you’re aware of the cut-off point for automatic contract renewals, so you won’t be trapped into another extensive contract. You’ll also be able to compare the offerings from your current provider with the offerings from new candidates with greater ease.

Why Use Soft Landings?

When you sign up for Soft Landings, we will:

• Build clean, usable and scalable standardised asset registers with third-party tagging & asset verification service
• Create your company’s standard service agreement with pre approved terms and conditions
• Utilise British Standard maintenance specifications to create bespoke property-specific scopes of work per each relevant building system, ensuring warranty and defects coverage
• Provide a full tender of specialised soft and hard facilities management services with planned preventative maintenance and reactive services to ensure we achieve your budgets
• Provide comprehensive up-to-date reporting of contract performance, vendor key performance indicators, service level agreements, and budgetary tracking systems
• Ensure all assets in the building have a maintenance plan
• Provide one year of ongoing support, escalation point-of-contact service, and Fjeld Consulting’s comprehensive performance reporting

Creating Your Building Handover Checklist

Putting together a comprehensive building handover checklist requires the knowledge that can only be gained with years of experience in the residential sector.

Having successfully overseen transition periods both in the UK and the US, Fjeld Consulting’s Soft Landings service ensures you have everything you need to manage a takeover with little to no fuss.

To find out how we can save you valuable time and money, make sure to get in contact with a member of our team today.