Deferred Maintenance Inspections on Commercial and Residential Properties
I ran across this article recently about the true cost of deferred maintenance and thought it was worth sharing. It was written by Kellie D’Andrea of Retail Facility Business Magazine.
While this was written focusing on retail properties, the same applies to all property types. Lenders or investors who are not personally managing a property should consider having a third-party deferred maintenance inspection performed to make sure their property managers are keeping the property up. As the article says, you can spend the money now or spend the money (often more money) later! Here are some excerpts:
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Deferred maintenance is the term often used when maintenance doesn’t get performed for a long period of time. Retailers are often faced with budgetary constraints, limited resources and, in some cases, limited knowledge that often lead to a decision to defer maintenance to save money, time or just because they didn’t know the consequences. But at what cost does deferring your maintenance really have?
According to participants in a recent online survey, “Results of putting off maintenance too long can range from simple component failure to major pieces of equipment dying much too soon to the failure of the entire location, not to mention the inconveniences and embarrassments that go along with it.”
When evaluating deferred maintenance it is important to not only look at its estimated value but to also focus on the liability it represents. As time goes on, liability increases and estimating future responsibility is often a difficult task. Certain systems impact different areas of your location and you need to not only take assertive wear and tear into consideration, but the risk to your contents and to the people who are in your stores. What is your risk down the line when major equipment breaks down or systems fail? Sometimes deferring maintenance isn’t the best solution and educating the finance department in the risks associated with that decision as well as the benefits of a preventative maintenance program is critical to the success of obtaining the necessary funding.
Deferred maintenance comes down to a financial decision — spend money now or spend money later. One goal of the facilities manager is to ensure that there is funding available in future periods to support regular maintenance and to cover the backlog of deferred maintenance items. By making an effective business case and educating your financial team, you will lay a strong foundation for financial discussions and secure the necessary funding required to maintain your stores.
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What are you doing about deferred maintenance on your property portfolios?
