What a maintenance agreement should put in writing, on both sides

Most maintenance agreements describe what the contractor will do. Very few describe what the owner has to do, and that omission is where most maintenance disputes actually start.

Maintenance is a two-sided obligation

The industry code of practice on maintenance for lifts, escalators and moving walks is unusual in that it sets out both sides. It lists what a customer should expect from a maintenance contractor, and what the contractor should expect from the customer. Reading the second list is more useful than reading the first, because that is the one nobody negotiates.

What the contractor owes you

An offer made against a recognised industry contract that answers your stated requirements, rather than a one-page proforma. Work carried out in accordance with the relevant work health and safety requirements. A risk assessment and a job hazard analysis before work starts on site, not after an incident.

A proper breakdown and repair service, and an agreed emergency passenger release service. Note the word agreed: response times for entrapment are a negotiated term, not a given, and they should be written into the agreement with the consequence for missing them.

An initial condition report, prepared in accordance with the relevant part of AS 1735. This is the document that matters most and the one most often skipped. It is the baseline. Without it, every future argument about whether a defect is wear, damage or a pre-existing condition is unwinnable.

Maintenance visits carried out against a planned maintenance program, not against whatever the technician has time for. Notification to the responsible person before work starts and when it finishes. Immediate notification of any condition that is unsafe or likely to become unsafe shortly. A work area left safe, tidy and clear. A maintenance log updated after every visit. And advice when the relevant codes, standards or legislation change.

That last one is quietly valuable and almost never delivered. Ask for it explicitly.

What you owe the contractor

This is the list that catches owners out, and every item on it is a defence a contractor can raise when something goes wrong.

Make the original technical information and the service history available, along with any essential special tools the manufacturer supplied. If you changed contractors and the previous one kept the documentation, you have a problem to solve before the new agreement starts, not after.

Provide safe access to the work areas, including the machine rooms. Act on the contractor’s recommendations in a timely way, particularly anything they have flagged as unsafe. Take the initial condition report seriously and work through it rather than filing it.

Where plant has been taken out of service because it is unsafe, do not put it back until enough has been done to make it safe. That sounds obvious. It is written down because it happens, usually under pressure from a tenant or an event.

Allow the plant to have a periodic thorough examination by the maintenance provider at intervals not exceeding twelve months, against the checklists relevant to the equipment installed. Report defects immediately, and carry out the simple daily checks the code sets out for the responsible person.

The responsible person is a real role

The code assumes there is a named responsible person on your side. Somebody who is told before work starts and when it finishes, who is notified of unsafe conditions, who does the routine checks, and who acts on recommendations.

In a lot of buildings this role exists on paper and nowhere else, or it is spread across a building manager, a strata manager and a committee, which means it is nobody’s. If you take one thing from the code, name the person, tell the contractor who they are, and make sure they know what the daily checks are.

How to use this at tender

Put the code of practice in the tender documents and ask tenderers to confirm they will work to it. It costs you nothing and it changes what you are comparing: instead of comparing prices against an undefined scope, you are comparing prices against a defined one.

Then check the agreement in front of you against the list. Is the initial condition report included or is it a variation? Is the periodic thorough examination in the price? Is there an agreed entrapment response time? Is the maintenance log yours or theirs? Does the agreement say what happens to the documentation when the contract ends?

Where the agreement is silent, it is not neutral. Silence generally favours the party that drafted it.

Where this fits

A code of practice is not law, and appending one to an agreement does not make it binding unless the agreement says so. That is exactly why it is worth appending deliberately: it turns a shared understanding into a term.

The Australian Elevator Association publishes the code of practice on maintenance requirements for lifts, escalators and moving walks. If you are going to tender maintenance, read it first. The commentary here is ours.

General information only. We review maintenance agreements for owners and asset managers, and we are not a maintenance contractor, which is the point.