Choosing a Painting Contractor for a Body Corporate

Appointing a contractor for a building repaint is a different exercise from hiring a painter for a house. The committee is spending other people’s money, the decision has to survive scrutiny at a general meeting, and the consequences of getting it wrong are shared by every owner. Here is what is worth checking.

Get comparable tenders, not just quotes

The most common problem with body corporate painting tenders is that they cannot be compared, because each contractor has scoped the job differently. One includes the balustrades, another does not. One allows for full scaffolding, another prices on a swing stage.

The fix is to issue the same scope to everyone. If the body corporate has a maintenance plan or a specification from a consultant, use it. If not, it is worth having one contractor or an independent consultant write a scope that all tenderers then price. A tender document that names the surfaces, the preparation standard, the products and the access method will produce three prices you can actually put side by side.

Check the insurance properly

Ask for certificates rather than assurances, and check the level of cover against the value of the building, not the value of the contract. A public liability limit that is fine for a house is not necessarily adequate for a multi-unit building where a fire or a water escape could affect many owners.

Also confirm whether subcontractors are covered under the same policy, and get the expiry dates. A policy that lapses partway through a three-month job is a real exposure.

Ask for the health and safety documentation

Work at height on an occupied residential building is high risk, and the body corporate has its own duties here as the party controlling the site. Ask for a site-specific safety plan rather than a generic policy, covering how the work will be accessed, how the public and residents are kept clear of the work area, and how materials are secured against Wellington wind.

A contractor who has thought about this will hand it over without difficulty. One who has to go and find something is telling you what their site management is like.

Ask for references on similar buildings

Residential house references do not tell you much about a contractor’s ability to run a staged repaint on an occupied apartment block. Ask specifically for multi-unit buildings of a comparable size and access difficulty, and talk to the chair or the manager rather than only reading a testimonial.

Useful questions for a reference: did the programme hold, how were variations handled, how did they communicate with residents, and were there problems at the end.

Understand what drives the price

On a body corporate job, access is often a larger cost than paint. Scaffolding on a four-storey building for three months is a significant line item, and it is where two tenders most often differ. If one tender is much cheaper, check the access method before assuming it is better value, and check how long the access is priced for.

The other big driver is the extent of repair. Sealant replacement, remediation of cracked plaster and timber repairs are hard to quantify before work starts. A tender with a stated provisional sum and a rate for additional work is more honest than one with a single fixed figure that will inevitably move.

Structure the payments

Progress payments against defined stages, with a meaningful retention held until after the defects inspection, is the standard arrangement and it protects the owners. Avoid front-loaded schedules. The final payment is the only practical leverage the committee has to get a snag list completed.

Agree how variations will be approved

Decide in advance who can approve extra work and up to what value. Without that, either the job stops while the committee convenes, or someone approves spending they were not authorised to approve. A delegated limit to the chair or the building manager, with anything larger going to the committee, works well.

Plan the resident communication before you appoint

Access to balconies, parking, scaffolding outside bedroom windows and noise all affect people’s homes. It is worth agreeing at tender stage who is responsible for notifying residents and how much notice they get. We have written separately on telling residents about a repaint.

Talking to us

We work with body corporates, property managers and committees across Wellington, and we are used to tendering against a written scope and reporting to a committee. Get in touch, or read more about our commercial and body corporate painting.