Condition Surveys & Schedule of Condition
We have many years’ experience of undertaking condition surveys and preparing a schedule of condition on behalf of property owners and occupiers coupled with the preparation of Planned Preventative Maintenance programmes.
Typically, however, the preparation of a Condition Survey and a Schedule of Condition is necessary prior to entering into a lease where accurately documenting the condition of the building fabric and services at the start of a lease is the best method of limiting a leaseholder’s future liabilities in relations to Dilapidations. We strongly recommend, therefore, that a leaseholder procures an accurate condition survey / schedule of condition, and it is included in the lease, prior to exchange of contracts.
This can be achieved either through the preparation of a written record of the condition or by producing a photographic record or indeed a combination of the two approaches.
This approach will reduce the potential Dilapidations liability by ensuring there is an accurate record of the condition of the property at the commencement of the lease to refer back to at a later stage.
In the case of stock condition surveys we are also familiar with running sophisticated digital data collection systems on hand held computers which download directly into a database in Microsoft Access. This ensures a consistent approach to the process of data collection, and the database allows selective reviewing of the data, by constructional element, individual property, sub-group of properties (eg, campus) or summary information for the whole portfolio.
