Property Condition Assessment

Recently we have been asked to undertake condition assessments for a number of commercial property portfolio owners. The reason for these varies from being able to accurately report on the property assets on their balance sheets through to ensuring that the maintenance budgets that they have allocated for the properties in the portfolio are accurate.

Forecasting maintenance expenditure is not a simple exercise and requires a good understanding of the way that a building has been constructed and maintained. In this day and age, when sustainability and life cycle costing is becoming more and more important, we are all beginning to grow our understanding on how buildings perform. The historic building stock in NZ is the property that most concerns - these buildings were constructed before the advent of sustainability and life cycle costing.

There are a few simple techniques available to address the issues of maintenance forecasting which we adopt on a regular basis -

1. Independent auditing is becoming more prevalent - helping to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest when it comes to inspecting and reporting on defects
2. Understanding how buildings perform over long periods of time enables us to accurately assess the effects and risks involved in deferring maintenance expenditure
3. It is all about facilitating better decision making and the combination of 1 and 2 above help in this regard

Auditing is not about being critical of another's work, it is about helping to raise standards and improve the performance of NZ property assets, and that has to be good for all.