→ Blog

Guides · 2026-08-23

How to Choose a Maintenance Contractor for a Residential Building

Choosing a maintenance contractor does not end at signing — it starts there. The costliest mistake is comparing bare prices before writing the scope of work, which means comparing offers that do not mean the same thing.

The executive regulation places contractor supervision explicitly among the manager's powers: providing the materials, services and works needed for the shared property and its maintenance, and supervising execution, staff and contracted vendors.

First: write the scope before requesting bids

Two bids cannot be compared if neither knows what is required. The minimum that makes offers comparable:

• The assets covered, by name and location in the building.
• The scope of each visit: what is inspected, what is replaced, what is excluded.
• Expected response time for emergency failures.
• Whether spare parts are inside the price or charged separately.
• What is handed over after each visit as a report or proof of execution.

That last item is the most neglected and the most consequential. A contractor who does not evidence what was done is hard to evaluate later, however good their actual work.

Second: verify what can be verified

Before awarding, review what is documented rather than what is promised:

• The firm's commercial registration and the validity of what competent authorities require for its activity.
• Documented experience with the same asset type, not maintenance in general.
• A reference from a comparable building you can actually contact.
• Clarity on who performs the work: the contractor's own team or a subcontractor.

Third: make performance measurable after signing

This is where most associations lose the thread. The contract is signed, a year passes, and at renewal the board finds only conflicting impressions — one member calls the contractor excellent, another calls them slow.

MRFQ's contractor management links every work order to the contractor responsible, so you hold a record of what was assigned to each, what was closed, and when. At renewal you discuss documented performance instead of general impressions.

Fourth: tie the contract to the maintenance schedule

A contract specifying a number of visits without tying them to named assets turns into ceremonial visits. When work orders are raised from the preventive schedule against the asset itself, each visit maps to specific work whose closure can be verified.

Fifth: when not to renew

The decision does not require open conflict. These indicators are sufficient on their own:

• The same failure recurring on the same asset after closed visits.
• Assigned jobs left open with no documented reason.
• Missing proof of execution despite the contract requiring it.
• Agreed response times exceeded in critical cases.

None of these are available to anyone who did not document. An association without a record renews by default, because it holds nothing that would justify anything else.

The manager's contractor-supervision powers are published in the executive regulation of the Real Estate Unit Ownership, Partitioning and Management Law at the General Real Estate Authority.

To see the record of what each contractor was assigned and closed before renewal, book a demo with the MRFQ team.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most overlooked clause in a maintenance contract?

Proof of execution after each visit. Without it the contractor is hard to evaluate at renewal however good their work, and hard to defend against an owner's objection.

Should we compare offers on price?

Not before the scope of work is written. Two differently priced offers may cover different assets and different visit scopes, so comparing them without a written scope is meaningless.

Who is responsible for supervising contractors?

The executive regulation states that the manager's powers include providing the materials, services and works needed for the shared property and its maintenance, and supervising execution, staff and contracted vendors.

How do we measure contractor performance without a system?

It can be done on paper, but it rarely survives a full year as board members change. Linking each work order to the contractor makes evaluation an output of the record rather than work assembled before the renewal meeting.