Q:  Our law firm just purchased a small professional office building, but we are not large enough to employ a property manager.  What is the best way to maintain the property? 

A:  You do not have to have a full-time property manager to maintain your property, but you, or whoever will be responsible for day-to-day maintenance, should think like one.  Since you will not have an in-house maintenance staff, you will be depending on outsourced work.  Your maintenance manager must have sufficient knowledge of maintenance operations to effectively oversee contracted work and make sure it is done in a competent and timely manner.

The first step is a maintenance policy and procedures manual.  This will ultimately be a collection of everything that could or should be done to maintain the property.  You can start with any documents that you may have inherited when you purchased the building.  You probably had an engineering inspection before closing, and you may have had subcontractor inspections as well.  These reports and recommendations can be the start of on-going checklists.

Each of the major systems of your building should have their own calendared checklist.  They include... Click here for full article