Your building's paperwork: what to keep and why

The same thing happens in almost every small building community: the important paperwork exists, but nobody knows where it is. There is a box in the storage room, a folder at the home of the president from three years ago and a USB stick that stayed behind at the management office. The day a specific document is needed, the hunt begins.

What a community should be able to put its hands on

The starting point is the building book (the libro del edificio). It is the file that gathers how the property was built and how it should be looked after: construction records, plans, materials, installations and maintenance instructions. In new buildings the developer hands it over. In older ones it often does not exist as such, and what there is has been pieced together over the years.

Around that, a community should keep within reach:

• The horizontal division deed, the bylaws if there are any, and the internal rules. These are the documents that say what belongs to whom, what share each flat carries, and what may and may not be done.
• The minutes of the meetings and the minute book. They are the memory of what was agreed and when.
• The building insurance policy, with its cover and its receipts, and the history of claims filed.
• Maintenance contracts: lift, heating, fire extinguishers, garage door, cleaning, gardening. With their terms, their duration and the number to call.
• Invoices for building work and refurbishments, with the quotes that were requested and, above all, the warranty documents.
• Certificates and inspections: checks on the installations, compliance certificates, technical reports on the state of the building, the energy performance certificate.
• The plans, especially those of the installations. Knowing where a pipe runs saves a lot of money when there is a leak.
• Contact details for suppliers and technicians, including whoever carried out the last repair.

Why it goes missing so often

Because of two handovers and one habit.

The first handover is the president's. The role rotates, and the physical folder travels from flat to flat with it. Something gets left behind in every move, and the neighbour taking over inherits whatever they are given, not what there was.

The second is the manager's. When a community switches firms, it gets back whatever the previous one had filed, which is almost never everything. And in self-managed communities there is no office to ask in the first place.

The habit is keeping it on paper only, and in one place only. A folder in somebody's flat is a single point of failure: some damp, a house move, or simply not being able to reach that person in August, and the community is left with nothing.

What happens when it does not turn up

• Work gets done twice, because nobody remembers that the drainpipe was replaced four years ago.
• Warranties are lost. A job may be covered and end up being paid for again because neither the invoice nor the installer's document can be found.
• Nothing can be claimed. With no contract and no earlier report, the conversation with the insurer or the maintenance company comes down to one person's word against another's.
• The community overpays, because nobody knows what is being paid for or since when, and some services quietly keep renewing themselves.

How to organise it and keep it current

• Gather what exists. Ask the previous president, the outgoing manager and the longest-standing neighbours.
• Scan everything. A readable phone photo will do; what matters is that a digital copy exists and does not live on a single handset.
• Sort it into simple blocks: ownership and rules, minutes, insurance, maintenance, works and warranties, certificates, plans, contacts, finances.
• Name the files clearly, starting with the year and then what it is. That way everything sorts itself and turns up first time.
• Note down what is missing and go and get it. If the policy is nowhere to be found, the insurer will email a copy; if a certificate is missing, the technician who signed it has it.
• Update it while it is warm. Every finished job, every signed contract and every approved set of minutes goes in there and then, not when there is time.
• Review it once a year, for example before the annual general meeting.

In the end, a building's paperwork is only useful if it turns up when it is needed. That is why it should not depend on one folder or one person: it should sit somewhere every neighbour can get into, stay there when the president changes, and spare the next one from starting from scratch. That is exactly what we try to make easy with Dommiva, although what really matters is that the community has it in order, wherever it keeps it.