Turnover package composer
What has to change hands at taking over, grouped by what it is for rather than by who produced it, with what depends on each item and how to tell whether it is any good.
The seamThe strongest lever an owner will ever hold over its own asset information, and the fact that the standard saying what to ask for binds nobody unless the contract cited it.
Two things are true at once about the information handed over at taking over, and together they explain why the package is always late and always argued about. FIDIC 2017 made the as-built records a precondition to the Performance Certificate, not just the supply of the Contractor’s Documents as the 1999 edition did, so the asset information sits on the contractor’s own critical path to being released and to the second half of retention. That is the strongest lever an owner will ever hold over its own information.
And the standard that says what to ask for binds nobody. ISO 19650-3 governs this exact transfer, and the UK BIM Framework’s own free guidance to it says it “is a voluntary document. By itself it conveys no obligation to use it”, and that the obligation “has to be created” by a contract citing it or a policy adopting it. The leverage exists and the specification does not, which is why the argument at handover is about the contents of a list nobody wrote.
Every date below is computed from this one, so the list reads as a countdown to the day the leverage closes.
Not who produced the document. The same item under two problems is the finding, not a duplicate.
18 items, of which 9 fall due before taking over. That split is the point: everything on the near side of the date can be insisted on while the contractor still needs something, and everything on the far side is a request.
The schedule carries two empty columns at the end, for when each item was received and who accepted it, because a package signed for by somebody who did not open it is the commonest way this fails quietly. Dates arrive as real dates rather than as text. The mark and the reasoning are on the sources tab and in the file properties, and neither touches the grid.
Turnover package
2026-10-01. projects-advisors.com/tools/turnover
Dated from a taking over date of 2026-03-31. Each item states what requires it, what depends on it, and how to tell whether what arrived is any good.
What releases the contractor
The only group where the owner holds a commercial lever, and it closes when the Performance Certificate issues. Everything here is worth asking for before that date and hard to obtain after it.
| Item | Due | What depends on it, what requires it, how to test it |
|---|---|---|
| The Asset Information Requirements the package was produced against | 365 days before2025-03-31 | Nothing, at handover. It is listed here because it is the item whose absence causes every other argument in this package, and because it is the only item that cannot be obtained late. An owner who did not write it is negotiating the contents of the package after the leverage has gone.ISO 19650-3, clause 5.1.4, establish asset information requirements. The UK BIM Framework’s guidance is explicit that the standard is voluntary and "conveys no obligation to use it" by itself: the obligation "has to be created" by a contract citing it or a policy adopting it.Test: It exists, it predates the tender, and it is referenced in the appointment. Two out of three is the usual score and the third is the one that matters. |
| As-built records | 28 days before2026-03-03 | The Performance Certificate, and through Sub-Clause 14.9 the second half of retention. This is the strongest lever the owner has over its own asset information and it expires the day the certificate issues.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 11.9: the Performance Certificate requires that all Contractor’s Documents have been supplied AND that the Engineer has given a Notice of No-objection to the as-built records. The second condition is new; under the 1999 edition only the first applied.Test: Open one and walk to the thing it describes. A Notice of No-objection given on a set nobody opened is the fault the 2017 wording was meant to close and does not. |
| Contractor’s Documents | 28 days before2026-03-03 | The Performance Certificate. Also the end of the argument about whether a document was ever a Contractor’s Document, which is unwinnable once the certificate has issued.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 11.9: supplying all Contractor’s Documents is the other precondition to the Performance Certificate, and it was the only one in the 1999 edition.Test: Reconcile the received list against the contract’s own definition, not against the contractor’s transmittal register. Those two lists differ, and the difference is what was quietly dropped. |
| The Taking-Over Certificate itself, and what it did not say | At taking over2026-03-31 | Care of the works, the first half of retention, the end of delay damages, and the start of every clock in the handover calendar. It also fixes what remains the contractor’s risk, which is exactly the list nobody reads.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 10.1: the Taking-Over Certificate states the date the Works were completed and any outstanding work. Sub-Clause 17.1 passes care of the Works to the Employer on its issue, save for the outstanding work.Test: The outstanding work list is specific enough to be closed out. "Minor snagging" is not a list. |
What the asset cannot be run without
The test is not whether a document exists but whether somebody who was not on the project could act on it. A manual that assumes the commissioning engineer is still reachable fails.
| Item | Due | What depends on it, what requires it, how to test it |
|---|---|---|
| Operation and maintenance manuals | 60 days before2026-01-30 | The operator’s ability to act without calling the project team. It also releases the maintenance contract from being written against assumptions, because the servicing intervals in here are the ones the warranties are conditional on.ISO 55001:2024, Clause 7.5 on documented information and Clause 8.1 on operational planning and control: the activities that deliver the asset management objectives have to be planned, implemented and controlled, which cannot be done from a manual nobody has.Test: Give one to a technician who was not on the project and ask them to describe the first quarterly service. If they cannot, the manual is a compliance artefact. |
| Operator training delivered, and to whom | 30 days before2026-03-01 | The point at which the operator can be held to a service level. Until it exists, every failure is arguably a training failure and the accountability is unallocatable.ISO 55001:2024, Clause 7.2 on competence: the organisation shall determine the necessary competence, ensure persons are competent, and retain documented information as evidence. A register of attendance is not evidence of competence.Test: The record names what the person can now do, not what they attended. |
| As-built records | 28 days before2026-03-03 | The Performance Certificate, and through Sub-Clause 14.9 the second half of retention. This is the strongest lever the owner has over its own asset information and it expires the day the certificate issues.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 11.9: the Performance Certificate requires that all Contractor’s Documents have been supplied AND that the Engineer has given a Notice of No-objection to the as-built records. The second condition is new; under the 1999 edition only the first applied.Test: Open one and walk to the thing it describes. A Notice of No-objection given on a set nobody opened is the fault the 2017 wording was meant to close and does not. |
| Commissioning records and test results | 14 days before2026-03-17 | The capitalisation date, and with it the depreciation charge for the year. It is also the baseline any later performance dispute is measured against, and there is no way to reconstruct it afterwards.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 10.1 read with Clause 9: taking over follows the Tests on Completion. IPSAS 45, application guidance AG27: depreciation begins when the asset is available for use, meaning in the location and condition necessary for it to be capable of operating in the manner intended by management, and the commissioning record is the only contemporaneous evidence of that condition.Test: Every result has a criterion beside it. A record of readings with no pass criterion proves the test happened, not that it passed. |
| Asset tags, applied and recorded | 14 days before2026-03-17 | Both registers, the warranty register, and every future work order. Retro-tagging an operating asset costs a survey; tagging it during construction costs a label.This publication. A tag is the one key that lets the financial register, the technical register and the warranty log be joined, the cheapest instrument for it and the only one that survives a change of software. ISO 55001:2024 treats data and information in Clause 7.6; the tag is not attributed to it.Test: Sample twenty tags on the ground against the list, in both directions. Missing labels and orphan list rows are different faults. |
| Health and safety file | 14 days before2026-03-17 | Lawful occupation and lawful maintenance. Nothing else in the package is a defence if this one is missing.Statutory in most jurisdictions and independent of the contract, which is why it is usually the most complete part of the package. Named here so that its completeness is not read as the package being complete.Test: It describes residual risk, not construction phase risk. A file that closes at practical completion is describing a period that has ended. |
| Control setpoints and parameters as left | At taking over2026-03-31 | The ability to tell, a year later, whether somebody changed something or whether it was always like that. Without it, the first fault investigation starts by re-commissioning.This publication. No clause names this document. It is here because the design values are in the specification and the as-left values are in a commissioning engineer’s laptop, and the gap between them is where the building’s energy performance actually lives.Test: A dated export from the system itself, not a table retyped into a report. |
| Spare parts list, holdings and sources | At taking over2026-03-31 | The first failure that would otherwise sit waiting on a lead time nobody had measured. It also feeds the maintenance budget, which is otherwise built from list prices.ISO 55001:2024, Clause 8.1: operational planning and control over the activities that deliver the objectives. A spare with no source named is an activity that cannot be planned.Test: Pick three items and find the physical spare. A holdings list with no location is an inventory of intentions. |
| The information model, transferred and accepted | At taking over2026-03-31 | The operator’s ability to answer a question about the asset without opening a drawing. Also every future trigger event, which ISO 19650-3 makes the unit of information management in operation.ISO 19650-3: the start of the operational phase is the transfer of relevant information from the project information model to the asset information model. That transfer is the turnover package under its proper name.Test: A question the operator will actually ask is answered from the transferred model on the day of transfer, by the operator, not by the person who built it. |
| Supplier and subcontractor contacts, by system | At taking over2026-03-31 | The first fault out of warranty, and every fault that needs the installer rather than the manual.This publication. No standard requires a contact list. It is here because it costs nothing at handover and is unrecoverable eighteen months later, when the site team has dispersed and the subcontractor has been renamed.Test: Ring two of them. |
| Where what was built differs from what was approved | At taking over2026-03-31 | Every future modification, which otherwise re-litigates a decision somebody already made carefully. Also the defects argument, because a departure recorded as approved is not a defect.This publication. The as-built records show what is there; they do not show that it was meant to be different, or who decided. That reasoning exists only in people. ISO/TC 251’s guidance describes Clause 7.7 of ISO 55001:2024 as requiring the organisation to determine the knowledge needed to operate its asset management system and to keep it current; recording departures and who decided them is this publication’s proposal for holding part of that knowledge.Test: Each entry names the person and the date, not the document. |
What the accounts need
The evidence accounting needs is produced by the project for a different purpose and is almost never passed to finance as evidence. It has to be asked for in the same breath as everything else here or it is reconstructed a year later from memory.
| Item | Due | What depends on it, what requires it, how to test it |
|---|---|---|
| Commissioning records and test results | 14 days before2026-03-17 | The capitalisation date, and with it the depreciation charge for the year. It is also the baseline any later performance dispute is measured against, and there is no way to reconstruct it afterwards.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 10.1 read with Clause 9: taking over follows the Tests on Completion. IPSAS 45, application guidance AG27: depreciation begins when the asset is available for use, meaning in the location and condition necessary for it to be capable of operating in the manner intended by management, and the commissioning record is the only contemporaneous evidence of that condition.Test: Every result has a criterion beside it. A record of readings with no pass criterion proves the test happened, not that it passed. |
| Statutory permits, approvals and certificates | 14 days before2026-03-17 | Operation, and the capitalisation date where the permit is what makes operation lawful.Regulator-specific and independent of the contract. IPSAS 45 AG27 also bears on it: an asset that may not lawfully be operated is arguably not in the condition necessary to be capable of operating in the manner intended.Test: Each one is in force on the day of handover and names an expiry, which becomes a date in the maintenance calendar rather than a document in a folder. |
| Cost breakdown to component level | At taking over2026-03-31 | Componentised depreciation, and with it the ability to write off a replaced part rather than carrying it alongside its replacement. A project that captured cost by contract rather than by asset cannot produce this and cannot get it back.IPSAS 45, paragraph 41: each part of an item with a cost or value significant in relation to the total shall be depreciated separately, and paragraph 43 requires the remainder to be depreciated too. Paragraph 8 declines to prescribe a unit of measure, so the split is a judgement, and it is one only the project can make.Test: The lines reconcile to the final account, and each line names an asset tag. |
| The date the asset became available for use, with its evidence | At taking over2026-03-31 | The depreciation charge, and the end of work in progress. Asserted rather than evidenced, it is the audit finding that arrives a year later with nobody left who remembers.IPSAS 45, application guidance AG27: depreciation begins when the asset is available for use, in the location and condition necessary for it to be capable of operating in the manner intended by management. That is a capability test, and AG27 says nothing about how to evidence it.Test: The date points at a document that tests capability, which is the commissioning record, rather than at a certificate that records possession. |
| Warranty certificates and their conditions | At taking over2026-03-31 | Every claim that will be made in the next two years. It also releases the maintenance specification from being written blind, since a warranty conditional on quarterly service by an approved agent is a maintenance requirement wearing a different hat.The Saudi national turnover procedure requires that a warranty log be available at turnover and that the entity designate a warranty administrator. Nothing in the contract standards requires the CONDITIONS to be recorded, which is why they are the part that goes missing.Test: Each certificate has a start date, a term and a named claim route. A folder of PDFs with none of the three is a filing achievement. |
| The Taking-Over Certificate itself, and what it did not say | At taking over2026-03-31 | Care of the works, the first half of retention, the end of delay damages, and the start of every clock in the handover calendar. It also fixes what remains the contractor’s risk, which is exactly the list nobody reads.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 10.1: the Taking-Over Certificate states the date the Works were completed and any outstanding work. Sub-Clause 17.1 passes care of the Works to the Employer on its issue, save for the outstanding work.Test: The outstanding work list is specific enough to be closed out. "Minor snagging" is not a list. |
What the registers need
Keeping financial and non-financial asset information traceable to each other is cheap at handover, when one party holds both, and expensive afterwards, when neither does.
| Item | Due | What depends on it, what requires it, how to test it |
|---|---|---|
| The Asset Information Requirements the package was produced against | 365 days before2025-03-31 | Nothing, at handover. It is listed here because it is the item whose absence causes every other argument in this package, and because it is the only item that cannot be obtained late. An owner who did not write it is negotiating the contents of the package after the leverage has gone.ISO 19650-3, clause 5.1.4, establish asset information requirements. The UK BIM Framework’s guidance is explicit that the standard is voluntary and "conveys no obligation to use it" by itself: the obligation "has to be created" by a contract citing it or a policy adopting it.Test: It exists, it predates the tender, and it is referenced in the appointment. Two out of three is the usual score and the third is the one that matters. |
| As-built records | 28 days before2026-03-03 | The Performance Certificate, and through Sub-Clause 14.9 the second half of retention. This is the strongest lever the owner has over its own asset information and it expires the day the certificate issues.FIDIC 2017, Sub-Clause 11.9: the Performance Certificate requires that all Contractor’s Documents have been supplied AND that the Engineer has given a Notice of No-objection to the as-built records. The second condition is new; under the 1999 edition only the first applied.Test: Open one and walk to the thing it describes. A Notice of No-objection given on a set nobody opened is the fault the 2017 wording was meant to close and does not. |
| Asset tags, applied and recorded | 14 days before2026-03-17 | Both registers, the warranty register, and every future work order. Retro-tagging an operating asset costs a survey; tagging it during construction costs a label.This publication. A tag is the one key that lets the financial register, the technical register and the warranty log be joined, the cheapest instrument for it and the only one that survives a change of software. ISO 55001:2024 treats data and information in Clause 7.6; the tag is not attributed to it.Test: Sample twenty tags on the ground against the list, in both directions. Missing labels and orphan list rows are different faults. |
| Spare parts list, holdings and sources | At taking over2026-03-31 | The first failure that would otherwise sit waiting on a lead time nobody had measured. It also feeds the maintenance budget, which is otherwise built from list prices.ISO 55001:2024, Clause 8.1: operational planning and control over the activities that deliver the objectives. A spare with no source named is an activity that cannot be planned.Test: Pick three items and find the physical spare. A holdings list with no location is an inventory of intentions. |
| Cost breakdown to component level | At taking over2026-03-31 | Componentised depreciation, and with it the ability to write off a replaced part rather than carrying it alongside its replacement. A project that captured cost by contract rather than by asset cannot produce this and cannot get it back.IPSAS 45, paragraph 41: each part of an item with a cost or value significant in relation to the total shall be depreciated separately, and paragraph 43 requires the remainder to be depreciated too. Paragraph 8 declines to prescribe a unit of measure, so the split is a judgement, and it is one only the project can make.Test: The lines reconcile to the final account, and each line names an asset tag. |
| Warranty certificates and their conditions | At taking over2026-03-31 | Every claim that will be made in the next two years. It also releases the maintenance specification from being written blind, since a warranty conditional on quarterly service by an approved agent is a maintenance requirement wearing a different hat.The Saudi national turnover procedure requires that a warranty log be available at turnover and that the entity designate a warranty administrator. Nothing in the contract standards requires the CONDITIONS to be recorded, which is why they are the part that goes missing.Test: Each certificate has a start date, a term and a named claim route. A folder of PDFs with none of the three is a filing achievement. |
| The information model, transferred and accepted | At taking over2026-03-31 | The operator’s ability to answer a question about the asset without opening a drawing. Also every future trigger event, which ISO 19650-3 makes the unit of information management in operation.ISO 19650-3: the start of the operational phase is the transfer of relevant information from the project information model to the asset information model. That transfer is the turnover package under its proper name.Test: A question the operator will actually ask is answered from the transferred model on the day of transfer, by the operator, not by the person who built it. |
| Where what was built differs from what was approved | At taking over2026-03-31 | Every future modification, which otherwise re-litigates a decision somebody already made carefully. Also the defects argument, because a departure recorded as approved is not a defect.This publication. The as-built records show what is there; they do not show that it was meant to be different, or who decided. That reasoning exists only in people. ISO/TC 251’s guidance describes Clause 7.7 of ISO 55001:2024 as requiring the organisation to determine the knowledge needed to operate its asset management system and to keep it current; recording departures and who decided them is this publication’s proposal for holding part of that knowledge.Test: Each entry names the person and the date, not the document. |
What the statutory file needs
This group does not depend on the contract being well written, which is why it is the one most often complete. It is here so that its completeness is not mistaken for the package being complete.
| Item | Due | What depends on it, what requires it, how to test it |
|---|---|---|
| Health and safety file | 14 days before2026-03-17 | Lawful occupation and lawful maintenance. Nothing else in the package is a defence if this one is missing.Statutory in most jurisdictions and independent of the contract, which is why it is usually the most complete part of the package. Named here so that its completeness is not read as the package being complete.Test: It describes residual risk, not construction phase risk. A file that closes at practical completion is describing a period that has ended. |
| Statutory permits, approvals and certificates | 14 days before2026-03-17 | Operation, and the capitalisation date where the permit is what makes operation lawful.Regulator-specific and independent of the contract. IPSAS 45 AG27 also bears on it: an asset that may not lawfully be operated is arguably not in the condition necessary to be capable of operating in the manner intended.Test: Each one is in force on the day of handover and names an expiry, which becomes a date in the maintenance calendar rather than a document in a folder. |
What perishes if it is not captured now
ISO 55001 Clause 7.7, on knowledge, is new in the 2024 edition. Everything in this group has a departure date rather than a due date.
| Item | Due | What depends on it, what requires it, how to test it |
|---|---|---|
| Operation and maintenance manuals | 60 days before2026-01-30 | The operator’s ability to act without calling the project team. It also releases the maintenance contract from being written against assumptions, because the servicing intervals in here are the ones the warranties are conditional on.ISO 55001:2024, Clause 7.5 on documented information and Clause 8.1 on operational planning and control: the activities that deliver the asset management objectives have to be planned, implemented and controlled, which cannot be done from a manual nobody has.Test: Give one to a technician who was not on the project and ask them to describe the first quarterly service. If they cannot, the manual is a compliance artefact. |
| Operator training delivered, and to whom | 30 days before2026-03-01 | The point at which the operator can be held to a service level. Until it exists, every failure is arguably a training failure and the accountability is unallocatable.ISO 55001:2024, Clause 7.2 on competence: the organisation shall determine the necessary competence, ensure persons are competent, and retain documented information as evidence. A register of attendance is not evidence of competence.Test: The record names what the person can now do, not what they attended. |
| Control setpoints and parameters as left | At taking over2026-03-31 | The ability to tell, a year later, whether somebody changed something or whether it was always like that. Without it, the first fault investigation starts by re-commissioning.This publication. No clause names this document. It is here because the design values are in the specification and the as-left values are in a commissioning engineer’s laptop, and the gap between them is where the building’s energy performance actually lives.Test: A dated export from the system itself, not a table retyped into a report. |
| Supplier and subcontractor contacts, by system | At taking over2026-03-31 | The first fault out of warranty, and every fault that needs the installer rather than the manual.This publication. No standard requires a contact list. It is here because it costs nothing at handover and is unrecoverable eighteen months later, when the site team has dispersed and the subcontractor has been renamed.Test: Ring two of them. |
| Where what was built differs from what was approved | At taking over2026-03-31 | Every future modification, which otherwise re-litigates a decision somebody already made carefully. Also the defects argument, because a departure recorded as approved is not a defect.This publication. The as-built records show what is there; they do not show that it was meant to be different, or who decided. That reasoning exists only in people. ISO/TC 251’s guidance describes Clause 7.7 of ISO 55001:2024 as requiring the organisation to determine the knowledge needed to operate its asset management system and to keep it current; recording departures and who decided them is this publication’s proposal for holding part of that knowledge.Test: Each entry names the person and the date, not the document. |
Computed from
- Tyson, FIDIC 2017: Clause 11, Defects After Taking Over, Howard Kennedy (FIDIC 2017 second edition, clause commentary; read 2026-09-25)https://internationalconstructionknowledgehub.com/wp-content/uploads/VT-FIDIC-2017-Clause-11-Defects-After-Taking-Over.pdf
- UK BIM Framework, Information management according to BS EN ISO 19650, Guidance Part 3, Operational phase of the asset life-cycle, edition 1 (UK BIM Framework guidance, current series; read 2026-09-25)https://ukbimframework.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Guidance-Part-3_Operational-phase-of-the-asset-life-cycle_Edition-1.pdf
- ISO 55001:2024, asset management system requirements (2024 edition; read 2026-09-26)https://www.iso.org/standard/83054.html
- IPSAS 45, property, plant and equipment (2023, effective 1 January 2025; read 2026-09-01)https://www.ipsasb.org/publications/ipsas-45-property-plant-and-equipment