The maintenance gap in turnkey projects

You only notice turnkey maintenance when it isn’t there. The project handover looks crisp, the keys change hands, and then small faults surface-leaks, alarms, controls, finishes-right where responsibility gaps tend to hide. For clients, this matters because the first 90 days of operation often decide whether a “turnkey” delivery feels like a smooth start or a slow, expensive snagging exercise.

In many builds, the gap isn’t technical. It’s contractual and human: who answers the phone, who authorises the visit, who pays, and what counts as “defect” versus “maintenance”.

The moment the building becomes “yours”

There’s a familiar rhythm to handover: training, manuals, certificates, a quick tour of plant rooms, and a promise that the defects liability period has you covered. Then the first callout lands on a Friday afternoon, and everyone reaches for a different document.

The client assumes the contractor will fix it. The contractor assumes the FM provider will handle it. The FM provider assumes it’s excluded until the asset register is final. The problem sits in the middle, getting worse by the hour.

The maintenance gap usually starts as a minor inconvenience and ends as a reportable incident-or a reputational one.

Where responsibility gaps actually come from

Most teams don’t set out to create a blind spot. The gap is produced by normal project behaviours: fast delivery, multiple tiers of subcontractors, and commissioning being treated as a date rather than a process.

Common root causes show up again and again:

• Interfaces nobody “owns”: BMS to HVAC, access control to doors, sprinklers to power supplies.
• Incomplete asset data: serial numbers missing, O&M manuals generic, warranties not assigned.
• Two clocks running: practical completion achieved, but operational readiness still catching up.
• Ambiguous boundaries: defects liability vs planned maintenance vs reactive callouts.
• A single point of contact that isn’t real: an inbox, a helpdesk, or “call the PM”.

The quiet culprit: documentation that doesn’t match the site

A building can be perfectly buildable and still be hard to maintain. If valve labels don’t match drawings, if plant access is blocked by finishes, if filters are non-standard, routine tasks become specialist callouts.

That is the hidden cost of the gap: maintenance becomes detective work, and every investigation burns time, trust, and budget.

A practical test: “Who fixes this at 7pm?”

Ask the project team to walk through five likely early-life failures and name, in writing, who acts first, who pays first, and what evidence closes the ticket. Most organisations can’t answer quickly, which tells you the gap is already in the programme.

Use scenarios that hit real interfaces:

1. Fire alarm faults after a power dip.
2. Doors failing safe/secure after access control updates.
3. Chillers tripping on a BMS alarm that’s misconfigured.
4. Leaks at final connections after thermal cycling.
5. Nuisance trips from “temporary” protections left in place.

If the response is “it depends”, it depends on a responsibility gap.

What good turnkey maintenance looks like in practice

The goal isn’t to load everything onto one party. It’s to make first response predictable and to stop issues bouncing between contracts while occupants wait.

A workable model usually includes:

• A named mobilisation window: e.g., weeks 0–12 post-handover with enhanced support.
• One triage route: a single number or portal that routes to contractor or FM without the client mediating.
• An agreed fault taxonomy: what is defect, what is misuse, what is maintenance, what is lifecycle.
• Asset data “minimum viable” standard: enough to maintain safely on day one, not “as built someday”.
• Warranty clarity: who holds it, who can call it in, what voids it.

Two minutes to define first response can save twenty hours of emails once the building is live.

The handover pack that actually prevents callout chaos

You don’t need a library. You need a tight pack that answers operational questions at speed:

• Asset register with locations that match signage on site.
• Commissioning results with setpoints and “normal” ranges.
• Isolation plans and safe access notes (what can be reached without permits).
• Contacts and escalation with time coverage (including out-of-hours).
• Warranty start dates linked to practical completion or commissioning, not both.

A compact checklist for closing the gap before handover

Use this in the last month, when reality is visible and changes are still possible.

• Confirm who provides reactive cover in the first 4–8 weeks.
• Agree the defect/maintenance boundary with examples, not definitions.
• Walk critical plant with FM and test: access, spares, isolations, resets.
• Freeze the asset naming convention (and label it on site).
• Run one day-in-the-life drill: an alarm, a leak, a door fault-timed, logged, closed.

If you can’t simulate it, you can’t reliably operate it.

The payoff: fewer disputes, faster fixes, cleaner data

When turnkey maintenance is designed into the delivery, early-life issues become a controlled workflow rather than a blame game. The building settles faster, occupants experience competence instead of confusion, and the client’s maintenance budget goes where it should: prevention, not friction.

The maintenance gap isn’t inevitable. It’s just what happens when a project ends on paper before it ends in practice.

FAQ:

• What’s the difference between defects liability and maintenance? Defects liability covers failures arising from workmanship or supply; maintenance covers planned and reactive tasks needed to keep systems operating. The gap appears when neither side agrees which category an issue sits in.
• How long should enhanced post-handover support last? Commonly 4–12 weeks, depending on complexity and occupancy risk. The key is defining response times and routes, not just a date range.
• Is a single helpdesk enough to solve responsibility gaps? Not by itself. A helpdesk works only if triage authority, payment routes, and warranty call-in rights are pre-agreed.
• What’s the minimum asset data needed on day one? Accurate locations, unique IDs, key spares/consumables, warranty details, and operating setpoints. Perfect as-builts can follow, but operations can’t wait.