What a Planned Preventative Maintenance Schedule Should Cover for Commercial Property

Most building owners only think about maintenance when something fails. A roof leak, a blocked gutter that has soaked a wall for two winters, or a window that will no longer close. By then the repair is urgent, disruptive and usually more expensive than it needed to be.

Planned preventative maintenance, often shortened to PPM, turns that around. Instead of reacting to failures, you know what needs doing, when it needs doing and roughly what it will cost, often up to ten years ahead. This guide explains what a PPM schedule is, what a good one should include and how landlords, investors and occupiers of commercial property in London can use it.

What planned preventative maintenance means

The RICS defines planned preventative maintenance as maintenance that is carried out purposely and regularly to keep the structure, fabric, facilities, plant and equipment of a building in satisfactory operating condition.

In practice, the term is used in two slightly different ways.

• Facilities management PPM is the routine servicing, testing and inspection of building services, such as boilers, air conditioning, fire alarms and lifts. It is often organised using the SFG20 maintenance standard and delivered by an FM contractor.
• Building surveying PPM is a costed, long-term plan for the building as a whole. A surveyor inspects the fabric and services, records their condition, and sets out the repairs and replacements needed over the next five to ten years, with budget costs for each year.

Both matter, but this guide focuses on the second. It is the one that helps owners budget, protect the value of the asset and avoid large, unplanned bills.

Why a PPM schedule is worth having

A well prepared PPM schedule gives you a clear picture of the building’s condition and a realistic view of future spending. The main benefits are listed below.

• Predictable budgets. You can set maintenance budgets and sinking funds years in advance, rather than finding money at short notice.
• Lower whole-life costs. Small repairs carried out on time prevent larger failures. Repointing a parapet is far cheaper than dealing with water ingress and rotten timbers behind it.
• Better service charge management. For multi-let buildings, a PPM gives landlords and managing agents a transparent basis for service charge budgets that tenants can understand.

• Protecting asset value. Investors and lenders look at the condition of a building. A current PPM shows the asset has been managed properly and helps support its value on sale or refinancing.
• Fewer disruptions for occupiers. Planned works can be phased and programmed around tenants, instead of being carried out as emergencies.

For landlords, good maintenance also makes managing dilapidations throughout the lease far easier and reduces the risk of disputes when the lease ends.

What a PPM schedule should cover

The RICS professional standard on planned preventative maintenance of commercial and residential property sets out what a PPM survey and report should include. A good PPM schedule for a commercial building will normally cover the following.

The building elements

The schedule should break the building down into its main elements and sub-elements, such as:

1. Roof coverings, structure, gutters and rainwater goods
2. External walls, stonework, render, brickwork and pointing
3. Windows, doors and shopfronts
4. External areas, hard standings, boundaries and drainage
5. Internal structure, common parts, finishes and staircases
6. Mechanical and electrical services, including heating, ventilation, lighting and lifts
7. Fire safety and accessibility items where they fall within the brief

Each entry should have a reference number and a location, so anyone reading the schedule can find the item on site.

Condition, defects and recommended works

For every element, the surveyor should describe its current condition, note any defects and recommend the repair, maintenance or replacement needed. Where photographs are included, they should be referenced against each item.

Priority ratings and timescales

Not every item needs doing straight away. The RICS standard suggests grouping works into priority bands, such as the ones below.

This lets owners deal with health and safety or weather-tightness issues first, then phase the rest of the budget sensibly.

Costs spread across each year

The heart of a PPM schedule is the cost plan. Each item should have a budget cost allocated to the year it is expected to fall due, giving an annual total and a total for the whole plan period. The report should make clear whether costs are at today’s prices or indexed for inflation, and whether they include VAT, professional fees and access equipment such as scaffolding.

Plan period

Most commercial PPM schedules run for five to ten years. Longer plans of up to 30 years are sometimes produced for large estates or institutional owners, but the further ahead you look, the less precise the costs become.

How often a PPM should be updated

A PPM schedule is a working document, not a one-off report. Buildings change, repairs get done and costs move.

The RICS recommends updating the plan annually where possible, ideally before budgets are set. Where a report is more than three years old, a fresh survey is usually more reliable than trying to update the old one.

PPM for listed and historic buildings

Much of central London’s commercial stock is period or listed property. These buildings need a different approach, because repairs must respect historic fabric and some works will need listed building consent.

A PPM for a historic building should use appropriate materials and methods, such as lime mortars and like-for-like joinery repairs. It should also allow for the time needed to secure listed building consent and reflect the protections that come with listed building status. Specialist historic building conservation advice helps make sure repairs are both appropriate and approved.

How PPM links to insurance and lease obligations

A PPM survey is often carried out alongside other assessments that owners need anyway. The inspection gives the surveyor a detailed understanding of the building, which can feed directly into a reinstatement cost assessment for insurance purposes. That figure should be kept up to date in line with RICS reinstatement cost guidance, so the building is never underinsured.

For landlords letting on full repairing leases, a PPM also helps separate the works that fall to the landlord from those that are the tenant’s responsibility. At the start of a new letting, pairing it with a schedule of condition gives both parties a clear record of where the building stands.

From PPM schedule to completed works

A PPM schedule only adds value if the works are carried out. For larger items, such as roof replacements or external redecoration, the schedule becomes the starting point for a specification, a tender and a programme of works.

This is where building project management comes in. Bundling several PPM items into one contract can save on access costs and disruption, especially where scaffolding is needed. An independent construction consultant can specify, tender and oversee the works on the owner’s behalf, so quality is checked by someone other than the contractor.

A PPM in practice

Fresson and Tee prepared a 10 year costed PPM for a multi-use building in Bloomsbury. The survey covered the external fabric, roof coverings and structure, hard standings, internal layout and all associated M&E. Repairs were prioritised by condition and the costs phased across the ten-year period, with drone survey footage from Spatial Dimensions used to inspect the roof.

Get a PPM schedule for your building

Whether you own a single period office or manage a mixed-use portfolio, a PPM schedule gives you control over your maintenance spend and the long-term condition of the asset.

Fresson and Tee’s chartered building surveyors prepare planned preventative maintenance schedules for commercial, mixed-use and listed buildings across London. We inspect the fabric and services, prioritise the works and give you a costed plan you can budget against, then help you deliver the works when the time comes.

To discuss your building, get in touch with our team on 020 7391 7100 or email surveyor@fandt.com.

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