The Almshouse Association strongly recommends that almshouse charities carry out a Quinquennial Survey (or stock condition report) every 5 years.

Based upon the Quinquennial Inspection Report, trustees should be able to plan routine and cyclical maintenance for the following five years.

A management tool – The quinquennial report is there to:

  • help create budgets for repair maintenance and improvements
  • help make informed decisions about how to manage the building stock in your trust
  • help plan preventive maintenance. The word preventive is the important one – you want to  avoid reactive maintenance – fixing the fault after it has developed and instead think about preventive maintenance – fixing it just before it goes wrong in order to avert all the problems that flow from a building element failing.

Selecting an architect, architectural technician or building surveyor is key.
Trustees should seek references and draw up a short-list. The charity must ensure that the person chosen is someone they feel they can work with and who understands almshouses. A fee basis should be agreed for the project and there may be an element of commission for supervision of repairs and maintenance work.

A Quinquennial Report is very practical as it will give an overview with recommendations for upcoming maintenance issues, enabling the charity to ensure they are not faced with a crisis. One of the Association’s Panel members stated that the Quinquennial allowed trustees to adopt a “stitch in time” approach so that they could spread the cost of future repairs and maintenance.

Many of the Association’s Panel of Consultants undertake Quinquennial Inspections regularly for almshouse charities. Details of Panel members and the areas they cover can be found on our website: www.almshouses.org/panel-of-consultants

The Quinquennial will involve an inspection of the dwellings, inside and out and is carried out with residents present. The charity may be required to provide ladders and, on occasion, a cherry picker.

The report will normally prioritise items that need to be addressed, immediately, in the 1st year, in the 2nd year etc. and will often include an indication of costs for each item. This assists trustees in drawing up both their maintenance plan and budget. The report should suggest priorities for the work and there are 3 main categories for this

  • Urgent items that you cannot and must not ignore
  • Things that you really ought to do if you can
  • The wish list.

The priorities of the surveyor might not coincide with yours, especially if a vacancy occurs giving the chance for refurbishment work. This is where understanding the the fundamental purpose of the report is important. The report should give the ability to be flexible in what you do.  If,  for whatever reason, trustees decide not to do something then they should have made an informed decision.

With a structured programme, if something is not managed one year, then it can be allocated to another year. This is why it is vital that once trustees have established a programme it is renewed every five years. That way anything not done in the front end of the programme can be reassessed and re-prioritised.

Click here for a link to our template Quinquennial Inspection ReportÂ