Defects period
The defects period is where an Irish project’s loose ends are either closed out or quietly forgotten. Whether your contract speaks of a Defects Period ending in a Defects Certificate, as the public works contracts do, or of a defects liability period, as many private contracts do, the dates all run from the day the works were taken over. Fidrel counts them from that day, files them in the facilities register beside your other warranties and service contracts, and reminds whoever added them, and the project’s administrators, inside Fidrel before each one falls due.
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A public works job talks about the Defects Period and the Defects Certificate, while many private jobs talk about the defects liability period instead. Teams moving between the two carry the wrong words, and sometimes the wrong length of period, from one job to the next.
By then the site manager, the design team and often the client’s project manager are busy on other jobs. If the inspection date only lived in one person’s diary, it is arranged in a rush or missed entirely, and the period can close before anyone has walked the building.
Items accepted as outstanding on the snag list at completion should be put right during the period, together with whatever the occupants report later. Without one place for both, nobody can say at the final inspection what has actually been fixed.
An Irish project starts from three entries. The end-of-defects inspection at 11 months is marked Common practice; the end of the defects liability period at 12 months and the final list of defects at 13 are both marked Under the contract. A short note under the list reminds you to check them against your contract. The length of the period and what closes it come from the contract you signed, so read it before adding anything. The periods are starting values to check against your own contract; Fidrel gives no legal advice on them.
Operations
The template’s entries speak of the defects liability period and a final list of defects. On a public works project you can keep the contract’s own terms instead: edit an entry’s title, for instance to Defects Period ends, and add a Warranty entry named Defects Certificate with the date you expect it. If the period is extended under the contract, move the entry’s end date; its reminder is then worked out again from the new date. An entry can also record the contractor as its counterparty, hold the contract reference and link the signed completion certificate from the project’s documents.
Step 1
Dates after handover sits on the Warranties & contracts tab of Facilities management. Its date field reads Practical completion on every Irish project; on a public works contract, the substantial completion date goes in that field.
Step 2
Three lines appear, each with a month figure and the date it produces: 11 for the end-of-defects inspection, 12 for the end of the defects liability period and 13 for the final list of defects. Overwrite a figure with anything from 1 to 240, or untick a line your contract has no use for.
Step 3
Add the dates turns each ticked line into a warranty entry that runs from completion to its end date. At the proposed figures the first two come with a 30-day reminder and the final list with a 90-day one; open an entry to pick any reminder between 0 and 730 days.
Early each morning Fidrel looks through the register for entries that have reached their reminder day. Whoever created the entry, along with the project’s administrators, then receives the notification Agreement nearing its end date, as long as the entry is visible to them, and the entry is marked Ending soon on the list. The facilities overview counts the entries in their notice period. Every reminder stays inside Fidrel as a notification; nothing goes out by email or text message.
The snag list agreed at handover has a line on the Irish checklist and its own folder under 10 Warranties and defects, beside folders for the defects liability period, warranties and guarantees, and latent defects insurance. Anything the occupants report afterwards can be logged as a fault report with a description, its location in the building, a priority and as many as twelve photos; assign it to someone in the project, name the firm doing the repair and set the date it should be fixed by. Before the end-of-defects inspection, the open fault reports and the snag list folder show what is still to be put right.
Boilers, lifts and other plant often carry a manufacturer’s warranty with its own end date, unrelated to the defects period. Each asset in the register has a Warranty until field, and the overview lists the assets whose warranty ends within 90 days. An asset’s Warranty until date triggers no reminder of its own. For any you need to be warned about, add a Warranty entry under Warranties & contracts and link it to the asset.
Fidrel issues no Defects Certificate, schedule of defects or final certificate; it only holds the dates you give it. Fidrel drafts no notice or letter to the contractor and leaves the end-of-defects inspection for you to organise. Fault reports are logged through Fidrel in a web browser, on a computer or phone; there is no separate app and nothing is pinned to a drawing.
Your trial applies to your first own project and starts when that project is created. No card required. Afterwards, choose card or invoice to continue.
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Read moreThat depends on the contract. Fidrel proposes 12 months for the end of the defects liability period as a starting value, but the period your contract states is the one that counts, so change the figure before you add the dates.
Yes. Rename an entry after adding it, or add a Warranty entry of your own under that name. If you rename one, running Dates after handover again offers the original line once more, so untick it there.
Edit the entry and move its end date. The reminder is worked out again from the new date, and the notification goes out once the new reminder day is reached, even if an earlier one was already sent.
The entry’s author and every project administrator who can see it, through a notification in Fidrel. Entries made by Dates after handover start 30 or 90 days ahead, and any figure from 0 to 730 days can be set instead.
Fidrel places it one month after the end of the defects liability period, as a starting value marked Under the contract. Contracts differ on when that list is due, so check yours and change the figure or untick the line.
The snag list is a line on the Irish handover checklist with its own folder, where the list itself is filed. Items still open can be followed as fault reports, each with a contractor, a fix-by date and a status, so they surface before the end-of-defects inspection.
