As-Built Information Request Preparation Checklist

Ask each appointed professional and the contractor what information about the finished work they produce as a matter of course, and record what each says.

The answer varies enormously, and asking early is what allows a gap to be discussed rather than discovered at the end.

What information is produced and who owns it depends on your arrangement; take any question about entitlement to your own legal adviser.

Establish whether the drawings you hold show what was intended or what was carried out, and note that distinction against each sheet in your own record.

Owners routinely keep design drawings believing them to be a record of the property, which is where later work goes wrong.

Write your own list of what you would want to know if you had to work on the property in future, and use that as the basis of the request rather than a general ask.

A specific list gets a specific answer, while asking for as-built information in general terms tends to produce whatever is easiest.

Ask what form the information will take, such as marked prints, updated sheets or photographs, so you know what you are going to be handed.

A marked-up print and a fully updated drawing are very different things, and both are commonly described the same way.

Ask plainly what will not be recorded, and write that down, so you know which parts of the property will have no record at all behind their finishes.

Knowing where the record stops tells you which areas you should photograph yourself while there is still time.

Keep a running list of information you have asked for and not yet received, reviewed at each meeting rather than left until the work is finishing.

Requests made once during the middle of a project are almost never followed up by anybody but the owner.

Raise what you will want at the end near the beginning, so the information is gathered as the work proceeds rather than reconstructed once it has stopped.

Reconstruction after the event relies on memory, and the people with the memory have usually moved to other work.

Ask for information about each part of the work as that part finishes rather than waiting for one pack at the end, and log what you receive as it arrives.

Information collected in pieces is far more accurate, and it exposes gaps while there is still somebody to ask about them.

Note which party holds the answer for each item on your list, since information about services, structure and finishes usually sits with different people.

A single request sent to one party tends to be answered only for their own part of the work.

Ask for what you need from a trade before they finish attending, and record what you were told at the time even if a document follows later.

A note of what somebody said while standing in the room is often the only record that ever exists.

Ask the contractor to obtain information from their trades rather than approaching trades directly outside the agreed route.

Photograph anything open that you suspect will never appear in a drawing, framing it against fixed features, rather than assuming somebody else is recording it.

Owner photographs are frequently the only as-built record of the smaller service runs and fixings.

Record verbal answers with the name of who gave them and the date, and mark them as verbal so nothing reads later as though it had been confirmed in writing.

Verbal information is worth having, provided the record is honest about what it is.

Ask for a record of where pipework, cabling and ducting actually run, and note where the answer is that no such record exists for part of the work.

Design layouts and installed positions diverge routinely, and only the installed positions are of any use afterwards.

Recorded positions are an aid only; anybody working on the property later must still establish what is present through a qualified professional.

Ask for positions to be described in relation to permanent features such as door openings and corners rather than to anything that could later be removed.

A position given from a piece of furniture or a temporary line becomes meaningless as soon as the room changes.

Ask where the isolation and control points for each service are, and record what each one serves in the words you are given rather than working it out.

Knowing what turns what off is the single most useful thing to have written down when something goes wrong.

Ask a qualified professional to demonstrate isolation points; do not operate anything you are unsure about to establish what it serves.

Ask for a written note of any labelling applied to services and equipment, so the labels can be reinstated if they are painted over or removed.

Labelling is applied once and lost surprisingly quickly, and the information it carried is then gone.

Ask what is behind the surfaces you are most likely to fix into later, such as walls beside basins, above worktops or where a screen might go.

These are the exact spots where somebody will drill in future, and where a recorded answer prevents real damage.

File your own photographs of open walls and floors alongside whatever you are given, since the two together are far more useful than either alone.

A drawing shows intent and a photograph shows what was there, and future work benefits from both.

Ask for the printed information supplied with anything installed, and note which items have none rather than assuming it will turn up later.

This paperwork is discarded during works more often than any other document, and it cannot be recovered afterwards.

Record the reference printed on the plate or label of installed equipment, copied exactly, rather than a description of what the item appears to be.

Anybody servicing or replacing an item will ask for that reference first, and a description will not do.

Ask to be shown how installed equipment is operated and what routine attention it needs, and write the answers down as they are demonstrated.

Follow the operating and maintenance instructions given by the installer and manufacturer for each item rather than applying general assumptions.

Ask for the references of the finishes actually used, room by room, since matching a repair later begins with exactly this information.

Finishes change during a project more often than owners realise, and the original schedule may no longer be accurate.

Ask what cleaning or treatment should be avoided on each finish, and record it beside the reference for that finish rather than in a general note.

Care information is only followed when it sits next to the thing it applies to, and it is usually given verbally at the end.

Note what spares, keys, remote controls and matching material have been left, where they are and what they belong to.

These items end up in drawers and cupboards throughout the property and are unidentifiable once separated from the equipment.

Walk through the property with the as-built information in hand and note anything visible that does not match what the sheets show.

Differences are obvious on the spot and invisible at a table, and the walk is the only way most owners will find them.

Check that room names and references used across the pack match one another, since information assembled from several parties often uses several schemes.

Mismatched naming makes a pack hard to use even when everything in it is correct.

Note which parts of the property the pack does not cover at all, and ask whether that is because nothing changed there or because nothing was recorded.

The two reasons look identical in a pack and mean entirely different things for anybody working there later.

Check that fittings you can see, such as outlets, controls and access panels, appear on the information you have been given for that room.

Something visible and unrecorded is a strong sign of other unrecorded things in the same area.

Raise anything that does not match as a question about what the sheet is showing rather than as an assertion that the record is wrong.

There is frequently a good explanation, and asking gets it, while asserting produces a defence of the drawing.

Record which parts of the pack you had no way of checking, so a future reader knows which sections rest on what you were given and nothing more.

An owner walk round establishes nothing about whether work is correct; anything of concern should be looked at by a qualified professional.

Keep a copy of the information somewhere other than the property, since the pack kept in a cupboard is the one lost to a leak or a house move.

Records about a property are most needed when something has gone wrong at that property.

Consider holding both a printed set and a digital copy, and note where each is, since a printed sheet is what somebody working in a room can actually use.

Digital files depend on accounts and devices, and printed sheets depend on somebody knowing where they are.

Write a short plain-language index of what is in the pack and what each part covers, aimed at somebody who knows nothing about the project.

The person who needs this pack most is the one with no context at all, and an index is what makes it usable to them.

Keep design drawings that were never updated clearly separate from information intended to reflect what was built, and label the difference plainly.

Mixed sets are read as a single record, and the design sheets are usually the prettier and more convincing ones.

Never let a design drawing be taken as a record of what is present; ask the appointed professionals which sheets were updated after the work.

Record who else holds a copy of the information, so a lost set can be replaced from somebody rather than reconstructed from the property.

Copies held elsewhere are the only realistic recovery route, and they are rarely written down anywhere.

Decide how the pack passes to a future owner or to anybody maintaining the property, and keep it in a form that would still make sense to a stranger.

A pack that depends on your own memory to interpret loses most of its value the moment you are not there to explain it.

Treat the pack as a description of what was done rather than as confirmation that any of it was correct, sufficient or permitted.

Nothing in an as-built record shows that work satisfies local requirements; that must be confirmed with the relevant authority and your appointed professionals.

Keep anything issued by an authority or an appointed professional separate from the contractor record of what was built, and do not merge them into one document.

The two carry very different weight, and merging them makes it impossible for anybody later to tell which is which.

Ask which documents relating to this work are issued by others and how you obtain them, confirming locally what applies rather than assuming the pack covers it.

Write a plain note in the front of the pack that recorded positions are indicative and must be checked before anybody works on the property.

Anybody drilling, cutting or opening up must establish what is present through a qualified professional rather than relying on any recorded position.

List anything that was not completed or was left to be dealt with later, so the pack does not imply a finished state that was never reached.

Packs are usually assembled towards the end and quietly present the intended outcome rather than the actual one.

Note any change made after the information was handed over, and keep those notes with the pack so it does not silently become out of date.

The first small alteration after completion is where a record starts to mislead, and nobody updates the pack for it.

Record who to contact for each part of the work once everybody has left, and keep that list at the front where somebody else would find it.

Contact information is the first thing that becomes hard to find and the first thing anybody needs.