Building records: inspection and repair history in one place
A building record is one place where you keep technical data, utilities, inspections and repairs for every building and unit, along with the documents that back it all up. Sound familiar? It’s November, there are three binders on the table, and you’re hunting for the report from the last gas inspection or the date the water heater was replaced. With a building record, you have one list. A tenant, contractor or insurer asks about the state of the installations, and you answer in a few minutes. No digging through the whole archive.
What is a building record and how is it different from the building logbook?
A building record is your own working register of a property. The building logbook (książka obiektu budowlanego) is something else: a document required by law. Both topics fall under the consolidated text of the Construction Law. Article 62 covers periodic inspections of buildings, and Article 64 covers the duty to keep a building logbook. You set up your building record the way it suits you. The other obligations are imposed by the act, and that’s that.
What does the building logbook mean for renting? Here’s the catch. In an apartment block, the logbook is usually kept by the housing community’s manager, so the owner of a single flat often has only limited access to it. A building record does not replace that document (and doesn’t try to). It collects what you need day to day, including a breakdown by individual unit. Not sure which obligations are actually yours? Ask the manager or a lawyer, don’t guess.
What should go into a building and unit record?
A simple rule: anything a tenant, buyer, insurer or contractor might ask about. A proper register of property inspections and faults includes:
- basic details: address, number of units, floor area and the manager’s contact details,
- technical documentation for the building: plans, floor plans, appliance manuals and warranties,
- utilities and meters, meaning supply point numbers and providers,
- appliances with their installation date, for example the water heater, boiler and cooker,
- inspections with the date they were done and the report,
- repairs with a description, the contractor’s name and the invoice.
A flat’s repair history should answer a few questions. What broke? Who reported it, and who fixed it? What stage is the job at, and what paperwork confirms it? We cover inspection deadlines and scope separately in our post on how to plan gas, chimney and electrical inspections. And there’s one rule: every entry has a date and an attachment. Without that, it’s just a note in the margin.
How to set up a record for properties you already own, step by step
Don’t try to do everything at once. Start with one building and the documents you have at hand, and fill the gaps when the next chance comes up. In my view, this order works best:
- List your buildings and the units in each one.
- Go through your binders and scan the documents. Keep the files in one place, for example the kind a cloud rental document library gives you.
- Agree on one file naming scheme: date, unit and document type.
- Assign each document to a building or to a specific unit.
- Rebuild the inspection and repair history from invoices and reports.
- Ask the housing community’s manager for copies of inspection reports for the common areas.
- Write down a list of what’s missing.
After that, it’s just a habit. A new report or invoice goes into the record on the day you receive it. Not a week later. And suddenly the question of where to keep inspection reports simply goes away.
What is a register of inspections and repairs good for?
A full building history saves time and stress with every change, dispute and formality. New tenant? You note the condition of the appliances and the latest repairs in the handover report, and back both up with documents. Selling? The buyer gets organised technical documentation instead of a verbal “everything works, sir”.
In a damage dispute, the date and description of an earlier repair show whether the fault was already known. Exactly. The same records help when you need to settle a tenant’s renovation costs, because they show what was done before the tenant moved in. Oh, and when you file a claim with your insurer, you have the inspection reports right away, without ordering them at the last minute.
Binder, spreadsheet or rental management software?
One flat? A tidy binder plus a spreadsheet is plenty. Several units in different buildings is another story, and a system that ties documents to a specific unit works better there. A binder and a spreadsheet are cheap. But searching them is awful, and the paper quickly drifts out of sync with the file.
So how do you keep records for a rental flat as the number of units grows? In Tenanto, the building record brings together the address and number of units, technical documentation and utilities, the inspection and repair history, and the linked units and documents. Repairs go onto a board with statuses, and tenants report faults in their own portal. That way every report leaves a trace in the unit’s history straight away.
Collect inspection reports and replacement dates in one place before anyone asks for them. That’s really the point. You don’t have to sort everything out at once. The best moment to start is the next inspection or change of tenant, because you’re collecting documents then anyway. From that day on, keeping a building record takes a moment with each new report.
Frequently asked questions
No. The record is your own register, while the building logbook is kept under the Construction Law. In an apartment block, it is usually handled by the housing community’s manager. Your record can, however, store copies of the reports you get from them.
Go through invoices, correspondence with contractors and handover reports. Ask the housing community’s manager for reports on the common areas. Mark anything you can’t establish as unknown. And don’t guess dates, because a wrong entry does more harm than a gap.
It’s enough for them to see what concerns their unit: reports and the status of faults they’ve reported. The owner’s details and invoices stay with you. This split makes working together easier and doesn’t expose information the tenant simply doesn’t need.
