Finished and lettable are two different dates

From completion to marketablecertificates first

An energy performance certificate is commissioned on the finished building and lodged before the interest is marketed, because the rating has to be available to anyone considering it and because a minimum standard governs whether a property may be let at all. The electrical installation is certified, and where there is gas the appliances and the flues are tested and a record issued.

The handover file is checked against what the letting stage will actually be asked for, not against what the contractor found convenient to supply. Missing commissioning sheets and missing warranties are chased while the contractor is still on site and still interested.

A residential tenancytime-limited steps

Right to rent checks are made on the prospective tenant before the tenancy is granted. Any deposit is protected in a government-approved scheme within the statutory period and the prescribed information is served on the tenant and on anyone who paid the deposit. The current government guide for tenants is given at the start of the tenancy. Smoke alarms are fitted on every storey used as living accommodation and a carbon monoxide alarm is fitted in any room with a fixed combustion appliance, and both are tested on the first day of the term.

An inventory and schedule of condition is taken with photographs before occupation, because it is the only evidence either side will have at the end of the term. The electrical installation condition report and the gas safety record then run on their own cycles for as long as the tenancy continues.

• Right to rent
• Deposit protected
• Prescribed information
• Government guide
• Alarms tested
• Inventory

A commercial leaseterms before keys

Heads of terms set the term, the repairing obligation, the break provisions, the alienation clause and how service charge and insurance are apportioned. The schedule of condition is taken and annexed before occupation, so that what the tenant is liable to put right at the end is a defined set of photographs rather than an argument. Where the term is to be contracted out of the statutory right to renew, the procedure for that is completed before the lease is completed, in that order and not the other.

A lease over a given length is registrable in its own right, and the application is made in time so that the register reflects the letting.

Operating the retained interestby calendar

What the company keeps, it then operates. Certificates are renewed against their own expiry dates rather than when somebody remembers them. Repairs are recorded against the unit they belong to. Periodic inspections are carried out and written up. Notices to end or renew a term are served within the windows the lease or the statute allows, and those windows are entered in the diary at the point the term begins, not at the point it is ending.