For owners’ management companies
When a developer hands an apartment scheme to its owners’ management company, the OMC takes over the common parts and inherits everything written about them: as-built drawings, O&M manuals, certificates, the safety file, service contracts, insurance details and keys. The board is the receiving side, often with no document controller of its own and with directors who were never on site. This page shows how an OMC, or the property manager acting for it, can turn the takeover into a list with a name and a date on every line, give the developer’s team somewhere to upload, and see at any meeting what has still not arrived.
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The directors are owners who volunteered, and the property manager is often appointed in the last weeks before the developer leaves. Neither sat in the site meetings, so neither knows which drawings were revised late, which firm installed the fire alarm, or which warranties were ever issued for the roof and the lifts.
A batch of PDFs comes by email one month, a box of O&M manuals lands at the concierge desk the next, and a second set of drawings turns up after that without saying whether it is the final one. Unless someone keeps a list against what has been delivered, nobody can say with confidence what is still owed.
While units are still for sale, questions about the building get answered quickly. Once the last apartment is sold, the developer’s staff move to the next scheme and a request for a missing certificate can sit for months, so the earlier the gaps are known, the better the chance of closing them.
The list differs from scheme to scheme, but boards and their agents tend to ask for the same families of documents. There are the as-built drawings of the common areas and the building services, and the operation and maintenance manuals for the lifts, pumps, fire alarm, emergency lighting, ventilation and access control, with the test and commissioning certificates behind them. Then come the safety file, the warranties and guarantees, the contracts for lift maintenance, fire alarm monitoring, cleaning and landscaping that are running or need replacing, the building insurance, a list of the plant with makes and serial numbers, and the keys, fobs and codes. Which of these your OMC is entitled to, and from whom, is a question for its solicitor; the checklist simply records what the board expects and what it has received.
Operations
The Irish facilities folders give each family a home. Drawings go to 03 As-built drawings and models and manuals to 04 O&M manuals. Commissioning records and the electrical, gas and lift certificates sit under 05 Commissioning and certificates, and the fire alarm and emergency lighting logs under 06 Fire safety register. Service contracts, insurance and a contact directory belong in 11 Service contracts and suppliers, and the asset register and the sinking fund plan in 13 Asset register and sinking fund. The OMC’s own papers, from its documents and house rules to the service charge budget, leases and keys and access, live in 14 Property management. A line you add can point at a folder of the structure, so the upload button beside it files the document in the right place.
Step 1
In a project started from Fidrel’s Irish site, a project administrator creates the facilities folders. They run from 01 Safety file to 14 Property management, where OMC documents and house rules, the service charge budget, leases and keys and access each get a folder of their own.
Step 2
Run Create from template to add the sixteen Irish handover lines, then add a New item for anything else the board wants from the developer: insurance details, the service contracts in force, a list of the plant, or the full set of keys and access fobs.
Step 3
For every line, enter the company or person delivering it, usually the developer or its agent, and the date agreed with them. Once that date passes, the line shows how many days it is overdue, so each directors’ meeting starts from what is actually missing.
Step 4
Invite the developer’s document controller with access to only the folders you pick and a role that can upload there. They file the documents; they never see the checklist, and the OMC itself moves each line to Submitted, Approved or Not applicable.
Some of what passes to the OMC is not a document to file but an agreement with an end date. Enter each one under Warranties & contracts as a service contract, maintenance contract, insurance or warranty, with the counterparty, the contract reference, the start and end dates, the notice period in days and the annual cost. The list runs in order of end date. Every morning Fidrel checks it, and when an agreement enters its notice period, the person who entered it and the project administrators get Agreement nearing its end date among their notifications. That gives the board time to renew, retender or end the lift or alarm contract it inherited instead of letting it roll over unnoticed.
Of everything the developer hands over, the safety file is the one the OMC will be asked for most often in later years, whenever a contractor is to work on the roof, the lifts or the plant rooms. In the Irish structure it has its own folder, 01 Safety file, with places for the file as issued, a summary guide, the design criteria, the residual risks, the location of services and the arrangements for maintenance access. Fidrel’s page on safety file handover covers how the file is gathered from designers and contractors; for the OMC, the point is to see it arrive complete and to know where to find it years later.
Above the checklist a progress bar counts approved lines against every line that applies, and each section shows how many of its lines are finished. The facilities overview repeats the totals with the number of submitted lines waiting for someone to look at them, a fair summary for a directors’ meeting or the annual report to members. When the takeover is complete, or a new property manager is appointed, the Export centre packs the facilities folders into one ZIP with the folders kept and, if you tick it, a CSV list of the files; each person exports only what they may read.
Fidrel does not transfer the common areas or the management company itself; title documents and the handover of the company are legal work for solicitors. The checklist records what the board expects; it does not say what a developer is obliged to hand over. Handover lines send no reminders, so an overdue line is only flagged on the checklist. Approving a line records who approved it and on which day, which is a note in the register rather than a signature. Fidrel collects no service charges and runs no owners’ meetings.
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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Anything else on your mind? We are happy to help.
Talk to usYes. The OMC or its property manager can start its own project on the Irish site, set up facilities management there and invite the developer’s staff to upload into the folders it chooses. They join through the invitation and work only in those folders.
Not if they are invited to chosen folders only. The handover checklist is open to people who have the whole facilities area, so someone given a few folders sees those folders and the documents in them, and nothing else.
The date agreed with the developer for that document, or the date the board wants it chased by. Fidrel compares it with today and flags the line as overdue once it has passed, until the line is approved or marked not applicable.
Yes. A New item takes a title, a section, the company or person delivering it, a due date, notes and a folder. Add one for every document your solicitor or agent advises the OMC to ask the developer for.
It stays Outstanding and keeps counting against the progress bar. Set it to Not applicable only when the board decides it does not apply. Fidrel writes no letters to the developer, so the chasing stays with the board or its agent.
No. The Irish template reflects common handover practice and the lines are a starting point. What the developer must hand over to your OMC, and when, is a question for the company’s solicitor rather than for any software.
