Maintenance
As owner, you are responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the property. Maintenance planning can help you to provide residents with responsive, cost-effective, and quality repairs and to preserve the life of your development. The key to carrying out these functions is good planning and organization.
Maintenance programming should include a maintenance staffing plan that is supported by the development budget and based on the development’s characteristics. Maintenance staffing should be adequate to cover the routine needs of the property and unanticipated or special projects.
A maintenance work priority system ensures that the most important maintenance work is completed in order of need, considers certain efficiencies, and minimizes vacancy loss, which also helps minimize rental revenue loss. The priority system ensures quality service to tenants and minimizes progressive damage to your development. Check out a complete maintenance checklist here, but priority categories may include:
emergencies that are threats to life, health, and safety of tenants or the development;
urgent items that present a potential threat to the health and safety of tenants if not addressed;
planned and/or preventative maintenance, including daily maintenance of grounds and facilities;
vacant-unit turnover; and
routine maintenance services generated by tenant requests or staff observations.
Establishing a Work Order System
In order to track all the maintenance tasks in your priority categories, you should have a work order system that includes all work request information: description of work, priority category, cost to complete, days to complete, and hours to perform. This information helps plan maintenance tasks and evaluate maintenance performance. To achieve the greatest effectiveness from the work order system, all work requests and activities performed by maintenance staff must be recorded on work orders.
Vacancy Turnaround
Vacant-unit turnaround requires close coordination between property management and maintenance. It begins when a unit is turned over to maintenance from property management upon tenant move-out and ends when the unit is turned back over from maintenance to property management when the unit is complete and ready for the next tenant, also known as make-ready time. Make-ready time should last no longer than 21 days (about 3 weeks).
Inspections
Maintenance should work with property management to develop a plan and schedule for periodic site and unit inspections. Inspections should be conducted in accordance with funder physical inspection standards. It is required to give tenants notice prior to inspecting their units. Schedule for these internal inspections prior to third-party inspections, such as REAC inspections, and consider using their inspection forms as a reference.
Regular Maintenance
A preventative maintenance program includes the regularly scheduled servicing of all equipment and systems. Each system must be identified, have its servicing cycles determined, and then assigned a responsible maintenance staff member to the scheduled inspection and servicing. A ground maintenance schedule should also be established that may include items such as fertilization, mowing, pruning, and mulching. Adapt both maintenance programming and inspections to comply with local and state building codes. A maintenance program can also be used to plan for and respond to natural disasters alongside a business continuity plan.