Commercial Maintenance Contracts in London

What a commercial maintenance contract should contain.

Most maintenance contracts are short on the things that matter and long on the things that do not. The document should answer, without a phone call, what is being maintained, how often, how fast a fault is attended, what the fixed fee covers, what is chargeable, and how the work is evidenced. In practice that means the following schedules.

• An asset register: every item of plant and fabric the contract covers, with location, make, age and condition. If the contract does not have one, the scope is an adjective.
• The planned schedule: each asset with its servicing interval and the reason for it (statutory, manufacturer or condition), so the legal minimum is visibly the floor.
• The statutory items and who certifies each: fixed wire testing, emergency lighting, fire alarm, fire doors, water hygiene, gas, lifting equipment, F-Gas. Which are self-delivered, which are managed, and where the certificate is filed.
• Response bands for reactive work, with definitions and examples, not just "24 hour cover".
• The fee boundary: what the fixed fee includes (planned visits, reactive labour, parts up to a value, consumables) and what is chargeable, with the labour rates, the out-of-hours uplift and the materials basis written down.
• Reporting: what you receive, how often, and the certificate library you can reach without asking.
• Term, break clause, notice period and what happens at renewal.
• Insurance, the accreditations held by any subcontractor and the permit-to-work arrangements for the building.
• Access: keys, alarm procedures, out-of-hours arrangements and who signs off work in the building.

The three contract types, and which building each suits.

Commercial maintenance contracts come in three broad shapes. The names vary between contractors; the boundaries do not. The table further down this page sets them side by side.

• Comprehensive: one fixed fee covers planned servicing, reactive attendance, labour and parts for repairs, usually up to a stated value per item with replacements excluded. The most predictable spend and the highest fee. Suits newer buildings with plant in warranty, and clients who need a fixed budget above all else.
• Semi-comprehensive, sometimes called labour-inclusive: the fixed fee covers planned servicing and reactive labour; parts and materials are charged at cost plus an agreed percentage. The common middle ground for London offices and multi-let buildings, because it removes the argument about attendance without making the contractor an insurer of old plant.
• PPM-only with a schedule of rates: the fixed fee covers the planned visits and statutory tests; all reactive work is charged at pre-agreed rates. The lowest fixed cost and the most variable total. Suits well-maintained buildings with an in-house handyman, or a client who wants the compliance calendar held by one party and the repairs competed job by job.

A fourth arrangement, ad hoc call-off with no contract, is not a maintenance contract at all. It buys attendance at published rates and nothing else: no schedule, no certificate library, no response band, and nobody accountable for what was missed.

What drives the price.

There is no price per square foot that survives contact with a real building, and we do not publish one. The fee for a commercial maintenance contract is driven by a short list of things a walk round establishes.

• How much plant there is, how old it is and what condition it is in. A ten-year-old air handling unit on a roof costs more to keep working than a new one, and the contract should say so rather than average it away.
• The statutory list for the building: a warehouse with no lift and no gas has a shorter calendar than a multi-let office with a passenger lift, a boiler house and cold water storage.
• Hours of access. Work that can only happen before 7am or after 7pm costs more than work done in the day.
• Response bands. A two-hour emergency band across London is a different operation from a next-day one, and is priced as such.
• The number of sites, and whether they can be visited on one run.
• What is inside the fee boundary and what is not, per the contract type above.

Our own contracts are priced from the asset register, not from a package, and the monthly cost is itemised so each element is visible and can be taken out or added later. Where a discipline is already well served by an incumbent contractor, we say so and price around them.

Term, breaks and Section 20.

Commercial maintenance contracts commonly run for one to three years, with a break clause and a notice period of one to three months. A longer term lowers the mobilisation cost per year and gives the contractor a reason to invest in knowing the building; a shorter term keeps the client’s options open. A contract with automatic renewal and a long notice window should be read twice.

Where the building is residential leasehold managed by an agent, the term has a legal edge. Under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 a maintenance agreement lasting more than twelve months is a qualifying long-term agreement, and if any leaseholder’s share of its cost would exceed £100 in a year the landlord must consult the leaseholders before entering it, or obtain dispensation from the tribunal. Individual works costing any leaseholder more than £250 trigger a separate consultation. The thresholds are set by the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003 and were current at the time of writing; the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 gives ministers power to change them, so check before relying on a figure.

The practical consequence: for a managed block, a contract of twelve months or less avoids the long-term agreement consultation, and works above the threshold need to be priced in a form that supports the notices. We price that way for managing agents as standard.

Changing contractor without a gap in cover.

The risk in changing contractor is not the new contractor. It is the fortnight in between, when the emergency lighting test falls due and nobody owns it. A handover pack and an overlap close that gap.

• The asset register and the planned schedule, with the last service date for every item.
• Every current certificate: EICR, emergency lighting, fire alarm, fire door records, water hygiene monitoring, gas safety, lift thorough examinations, F-Gas records.
• The open remedial list: every finding not yet closed, with its priority and any quotation.
• Keys, fobs, alarm codes, building management system logins, plant room access and the permit arrangements.
• Spares held on site, and any warranty documents for plant still in warranty.
• A start date for the new contract that overlaps the notice period on the old one, so the calendar is held by somebody every day.

One legal point is worth knowing before notice is served. Where a maintenance activity moves from one contractor to another, or is brought in-house, the staff assigned to that activity may transfer to the new provider under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, which treat that kind of move as a service provision change. It arises most often where a contractor has dedicated on-site staff. It is not a reason to stay with a poor contractor, but it is a reason to take advice before the change rather than after it.

What we put in ours.

A contract with Guardian Management Group starts with a walk round and an asset register, and the schedule and the price come out of that. It can start with one building or one discipline and widen, and it can be comprehensive, semi-comprehensive or PPM-only, as the building and the budget warrant.

Every one carries the same fixed points: response bands written in (emergencies within 2 hours, urgent faults within 4 hours, routine faults within 5 working days, unless the contract says otherwise); an itemised monthly cost; a monthly position report per building showing what was done, what is booked, what is overdue and which remedials are open; a certificate library you can reach without ringing us; and a plain statement of which work we self-deliver and which we manage through accredited specialists. The test we build to is whether you can answer an insurer, a landlord or an auditor in ten minutes without ringing your contractor.

Common questions

Questions we get asked about maintenance contracts.

Guidance reviewed September 2026