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How to write a maintenance service agreement: an Australian guide for building owners and managers

A maintenance service agreement decides what gets maintained, how often, how fast and at what price, and it's where most compliance gaps begin. Here's what to put in one, the Australian rules that apply, and the costs of getting it wrong.

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What a maintenance service agreement is

A maintenance service agreement is the contract between a building owner, or the manager acting for them, and a contractor who maintains part of the building on a regular basis. Fire services, air-conditioning, lifts, electrical testing, cleaning, pest control and gardens are all usually covered this way.

It's different from a one-off job. A service agreement runs for a term, usually one to three years, and covers recurring, planned work: the scheduled servicing that keeps equipment running and the building compliant. It often also sets the terms for reactive call-outs between visits.

Most of the guides you'll find online are American, or are written for the contractor selling the agreement. This one is written for the owner's side in Australia.

Why it matters more than it looks

The service agreement quietly decides a lot of things:

  • What gets maintained, and what falls between two contracts
  • How often, which decides whether the building meets its legal maintenance requirements
  • How fast problems get fixed
  • What it costs, this year and every year after
  • What evidence you get, the reports and certificates you'll need at audit or annual statement time

Most of these are decided once, at tender time, and then rarely looked at again. That's why so many compliance gaps start in the contract, not on site.

The obligations you can't contract away

Before the clauses, it helps to know what the contract can't do.

Your compliance obligations stay with you. The owner, or in some states the occupier, is legally responsible for keeping essential safety measures and other regulated systems maintained. Engaging a contractor is how you meet that duty. It doesn't transfer it. (See our state-by-state guide to essential safety measures.)

WHS duties are shared, not handed over. Safe Work Australia is blunt: "WHS duties can't be transferred", and it's "not okay to just assume another duty holder will take responsibility." When you engage a contractor, you both have duties. You need to consult, cooperate and coordinate on hazards, access and how the work interacts with the rest of the building. A written agreement can set out how you'll do that, but it can't limit your own obligations.

Unfair contract terms law applies to your standard form. If you use your own standard contract with a small contractor, the unfair contract terms laws apply. A small business here means fewer than 100 employees, or turnover under $10 million. Since 9 November 2023, unfair terms are illegal, not just void, and each unfair term is a separate contravention. Maximum penalties for a business are the greater of $50 million, three times the benefit gained, or 30% of turnover over the breach period. One-sided variation rights, broad liability caps protecting only you, and excessive termination charges are the classic risks.

Security of payment law may apply to maintenance. In some states, maintenance of buildings counts as construction work for security of payment purposes. Queensland's Act, for example, expressly includes "maintenance" of buildings and of air-conditioning, power supply, fire protection and similar systems. Check whether your agreement is caught, because it affects payment timeframes and the contractor's right to claim.

What to put in the agreement

1. Scope: which assets and which work

List the properties and the specific assets covered: every chiller, every fire panel, every lift. "HVAC maintenance at 123 Smith St" invites arguments about whether the rooftop exhaust fans were included.

Say what's in and what's out. Typical exclusions are parts above a set value, damage, and upgrades to meet new requirements. Exclusions are fine. Surprises aren't.

2. Frequencies: matched to what each asset needs

For each asset, state how often each service happens. Then check those frequencies against the building's compliance requirements, not just the contractor's standard plan. A contractor's annual service doesn't satisfy an obligation that needs six-monthly checks.

This is the single most common gap we see. Frequencies get agreed commercially, and nobody compares them with what the building legally needs.

3. Response times for breakdowns

Set response times by priority, with clear definitions. Government contracts are a good model. Western Australia's whole-of-government breakdown repair arrangement, for example, sets attendance:

PriorityAttendance
Priority 1Within 24 hours
Priority 2Within 3 business days
Priority 3Within 7 business days

Add a pre-approved spend limit per call-out. The contractor can fix anything up to that amount straight away, and anything over it needs your approval first. WA's arrangement uses limits in the low thousands of dollars.

4. Evidence and records

Specify exactly what the contractor must hand over after every visit: service reports, test results, certificates, photos and defects found. Say where it goes and how quickly.

This is the part most agreements skip, and it's the part you'll need most. It's the evidence for your annual fire safety statement, your insurer and any audit.

5. Licences, insurance and inductions

Require current trade licences for the work, public liability and workers' compensation insurance, and site inductions. Say how proof is provided and kept current, not just checked once at signing.

6. Price, billing and indexation

Set out the price clearly: the annual value, how it's split per property, and how often it's billed. If tenants or outgoings recover part of the cost, say how it's apportioned.

Indexation is where multi-year agreements get messy. Choose one approach and write it down:

  • a fixed percentage each anniversary, or
  • CPI-linked, with the index, the base period and who confirms the figure each year spelled out.

Without a clear clause, you'll either pay a surprise increase or lose the contractor mid-term.

7. Variations

Say how changes are made: adding a property, removing an asset or changing the scope. Every variation should be in writing, with a reason and a start date. Over a three-year term, a contract without recorded variations becomes impossible to reconcile against invoices.

8. Term, renewal and expiry

State the start and end dates, the notice period, and exactly what happens at the end. Does it roll over, or stop? Many agreements quietly keep running after they expire, at the old price, with nobody noticing until something goes wrong.

9. Performance and termination

Define a few KPIs you'll actually measure: planned visits completed on time, response times met, reports received within X days. Then set out what happens when they're missed, from a review meeting through to termination.

What it costs to get this wrong

Most service agreement problems don't show up as a single big failure. They show up as a slow leak:

  • Missed obligations: an asset left out of scope, or a frequency set too low. You find out at audit time, or after an incident.
  • Paying for the wrong work: over-servicing assets that don't need it, while under-servicing those that do.
  • Unchecked invoices: invoices paid without being compared with the agreed price, the variations and the work actually done.
  • Missed price reviews: indexation not applied when due, followed by a difficult catch-up conversation, or applied wrongly with nobody checking.
  • Expiry drift: contracts running past their end date with no renewal, no review and no leverage.
  • Lost evidence: reports sitting in an inbox when the annual statement is due.

Each one is small, and together they're expensive. Almost all of them come from the same place: the contract lives in a PDF, and the work happens somewhere else.

A short checklist

  1. List every asset covered, not just the building.
  2. Match every frequency to the compliance requirement, not the contractor's plan.
  3. Set response times by priority, plus a pre-approved spend limit.
  4. Specify the evidence required after every visit.
  5. Require licences and insurance to be kept current.
  6. Write a clear indexation clause.
  7. Make every variation written, dated and reasoned.
  8. Decide what happens at expiry.
  9. Pick three KPIs you'll actually measure.
  10. Check your own standard terms for unfair contract terms if the contractor is a small business.

How Accessly helps

In Accessly, a service agreement isn't a PDF in a folder. It runs the maintenance.

You record the agreement once: the properties, the assets covered, the price and how it's billed, and the indexation. Accessly then sets up the planned maintenance from it, checks it against the compliance obligations it should be meeting, applies price rises on each anniversary, and records every variation with its reason.

Read: Service agreements that run your planned maintenance → · See Service Agreements →

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Have your contract terms reviewed by a lawyer.

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