Ground plateWhat a fee-basis instruction covers

On this plate the company does not own or lease the property. An owner instructs the office to do named things with it and pays a fee for doing them. That is the whole of the relationship, and the reason the ground plate is drawn differently from the three above it in the section at step one.

The scope is written down before any key changes hands, because the question that causes trouble later is never whether something was done well but whether it was within the instruction. A management agreement that says the office will deal with repairs is not an agreement; one that says the office may instruct repairs up to a stated limit without asking, must ask above it, and must ask for anything structural whatever the figure, is.

BoundaryWhere the instruction stops

Three boundaries are drawn on the agreement and none of them is assumed. First, the limit above which the owner is asked before anything is instructed. Second, whether the office may sign a tenancy agreement in the owner's name or only prepare one for the owner to sign. Third, who decides on an application from a prospective tenant: the office may present the checks, but accepting or refusing is the owner's decision unless the agreement says otherwise in terms.

An instruction that is silent on any of the three is sent back before work starts. Silence is not consent, and an owner who later disagrees with something the agreement did not cover is right to.

MoneyReceipts held on an owner's behalf

Where the office is instructed to collect rent, the money received belongs to the owner from the moment it arrives. It is held separately from the company's own funds and it is accounted for on the cycle the agreement sets, in a statement that lists what came in, what went out, what it went out for and what remains open at the date of the statement.

A statement that shows a balance without showing the works orders behind it is not a statement. Every outgoing on it references the order that caused it, and every order names the fault, the contractor and the date it was raised.

AccessContractors and getting in

A contractor is given the address, the access arrangement, the fault and nothing else. They do not get the occupier's name, the occupier's telephone number or the key safe code unless the occupier has agreed to it for that visit. Where the flat is occupied, the visit is arranged with the occupier first and the contractor is told the agreed time rather than being left to arrange it themselves.

Keys issued to a contractor are signed out against the numbered tag and signed back in. A key that has not come back by the end of the day it went out is chased that day, and the lock is changed rather than hoped about.

EndingHow an instruction ends

Either side can end a management instruction on the notice the agreement sets. At the end the office hands back the numbered keys against the list they were signed in on, the tenancy file as it stands, the schedules of condition and their photographs, the certificates and their renewal dates, and a closing statement to the date of handover. Open works orders are listed as open rather than quietly closed.

What this office keeps afterwards, and for how long, is set out at step ten.