Handover guide
At practical completion the building passes from the contractor to the people who will occupy and run it, and the information handed over with it decides how well that goes. This guide sets out what a UK handover usually contains, how to give every item an owner and a date, and how Fidrel keeps the checklist in facilities management until each item is approved or marked not applicable.
30 days free · No minimum term.
The handover schedule is often a spreadsheet passed between the employer’s agent, the main contractor and a dozen trades. By the time practical completion arrives, nobody can say which O&M manuals are final and which are still drafts.
As-built drawings and test certificates arrive by email or stay in the project’s working folders. Years later, when a boiler fails or a lift is modernised, the commissioning record cannot be found.
Items agreed to follow practical completion, such as the final building log book or a collateral warranty, are easy to lose once the site team has moved on to its next job.
Each contract sets its own handover requirements, and a template is only where the list begins. Fidrel’s UK template adds sixteen items in five sections. As-built information: architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical drawings. Operation and maintenance: the O&M manuals for mechanical and for electrical services, an asset register of plant and equipment, the building log book and the building user guide. Test certificates: commissioning records and test certificates, electrical installation certificates and the building control completion certificate. Warranties: guarantees and warranties, and collateral warranties. Under Other: the health and safety file, and the fire strategy with its fire safety information. Sections for completion and sign-off, training, and keys and access are there for your own items, such as the practical completion certificate, training for the facilities staff or the handover of fobs and access cards.
Operations
Each item has a title, a section, the company or person delivering it, a due date and notes, and it can link one project document. Its status is Outstanding, Submitted, Approved or Not applicable, and approving it stamps who approved it and on which day. A due date that has passed shows as overdue until the item is approved or marked not applicable. Above the list a progress line counts what is approved, submitted and still outstanding, leaving out the items that do not apply, and each section shows how many of its items are done. The facilities management overview repeats the count beside fault reports, statutory inspections and warranties, with the number awaiting review.
Step 1
A project administrator creates the UK folder structure in one step, from the building log book and the health and safety file to O&M manuals, certificates and warranties.
Step 2
Choose Create from template to add the sixteen UK items, each pointing to its folder. Then add whatever your contract asks for, and give every item a responsible party and a due date.
Step 3
Upload each document straight into the item’s folder, or copy the current revision of drawings and manuals across from the project’s own folders, then set the item to Submitted.
Step 4
Check what has arrived and set the item to Approved, or to Not applicable where it does not apply. The progress line shows what is left before the handover is complete.
Much of the handover already sits in the project: drawings issued during construction, manuals sent for comment, test results. An administrator can copy the current revision of those documents into the facilities folders. The project keeps its documents, and each copy shows when the project has a newer revision, so you can see when a later as-built revision arrives. When the employer, a funder or a new managing agent needs everything at once, the Export centre downloads the facilities folders as one ZIP file with the folders kept and, if you tick it, a CSV list of the files.
Three parts of a UK handover have folders of their own. The health and safety file folder holds the file as issued, with subfolders for the description of works, residual hazards, structure and loadings, hazardous materials and services locations among others, so whoever next maintains or alters the building finds what matters to them. The building log book sits with the building user guide and a folder for the annual log book reviews. Under warranties and defects, collateral warranties are kept apart from ordinary guarantees, next to the snagging list, the defects liability period and the certificate of making good.
The same facilities management area carries on once the building is occupied, with the asset register, warranties and contracts, statutory inspections and fault reports. Under Dates after handover you enter the practical completion date, and Fidrel works out the end-of-defects inspection and the end of the defects liability period and adds them to the warranties and contracts list with a reminder. The periods are common starting points. Check them against your contract.
The template is a starting point, not a statement of what your contract or the law requires. Fidrel does not compile an O&M manual: there is no bound PDF with a cover, contents and bookmarks, and the checklist has no export or print view of its own. Approving an item records a name and a date; it is not a signature. Handover items send no reminders; an overdue item is flagged on the checklist. The template’s BIM and COBie folder is a place to file the model and data you receive; Fidrel does not produce or check COBie data. Contractors cannot set the status of their own items unless they are given the right to manage facilities management as a whole.
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.
The project system of the future connects people, documents and decisions. Discover the thinking behind Fidrel.
Read more
On site, answers need to be close at hand. Fidrel displays DWG drawings in your mobile browser, within the project’s document structure.
Read more
When everyone can see the next step, moving the project forward becomes easier. Fidrel brings activities, dates and reported progress together in a shared Gantt view.
Read moreWhatever the contract names. Most lists cover as-built drawings, O&M manuals, test and commissioning certificates, the building log book, the health and safety file, the fire strategy, warranties and collateral warranties, which is where Fidrel’s UK template starts.
No. It is a starting point built from common UK practice. Add the items your contract or the employer’s requirements name, and mark anything that does not apply as Not applicable.
Not unless you give them that right. Status is set by project administrators and by members who manage facilities management as a whole; contractors can upload to the folders they have been given access to.
No. Handover items send no reminders. The checklist flags items whose due date has passed, and the overview shows how many are outstanding and how many are awaiting review.
Yes. The Export centre downloads the facilities folders as one ZIP file with the folder structure kept and a CSV list of the files. It does not bind them into a single PDF.
No. Documents already in the project can be copied across at their current revision, and the copy shows when the project later gets a newer one.
