Building Maintenance
Synonyms: Property Maintenance، Facility Maintenance، Building Upkeep، Planned Maintenance
Last updated: 2026-09-25
Short Definition
Building maintenance is the periodic and emergency work needed to keep a building’s structure, systems and common facilities sound and safe, such as lifts, pumps, tanks, generators, fire systems, central air-conditioning, roof waterproofing, façades and electrical rooms.
Overview
Legal Basis
In a lease, the Civil Transactions Law (Royal Decree No. M/191 dated 29/11/1444H) obliges the landlord to carry out necessary repairs and, if the landlord fails, allows the tenant to repair with court permission or to deduct urgent and minor repairs from rent to the extent custom accepts, with the parties free to agree otherwise (Article 419); it requires the tenant to carry out customary maintenance (Article 433) and not to block necessary repairs (Article 434). In jointly owned property, Article 26 of the Law of Ownership, Partition and Management of Real Estate Units (M/85 dated 2/7/1441H) allocates common-part maintenance costs by area, and Article 27 obliges each owner to maintain their unit. The Real Estate Brokerage Law (M/130) treats facilities management as a real estate service that requires a licence.
Practical Example
A residential building in Al-Sahafa, Riyadh, has 32 apartments owned by one owner, generating SAR 1,440,000 a year (SAR 45,000 per apartment). The owner adopts an annual maintenance plan before VAT: lift maintenance contract for two lifts SAR 18,000, cleaning and disinfecting the tanks twice SAR 3,000, fire alarm and suppression inspection SAR 6,000, pumps and generator servicing SAR 5,000, and a provision for renewing the roof waterproofing SAR 20,000; a total of SAR 52,000, about 3.6% of revenue. Because residential rent is VAT-exempt, the owner generally cannot recover input VAT on these services and treats it as a cost. In summer an air-conditioner fails in one flat and the tenant notifies in writing; the contractor is slow, so the tenant repairs it for SAR 650 and deducts it from the next instalment with the invoice, an urgent repair that custom accepts.
Common Mistakes
- ✗Relying only on repairs after failures and neglecting preventive maintenance of lifts, fire systems and tanks, then paying several times more in emergencies.
- ✗Writing a lease clause that makes the tenant responsible for all maintenance indiscriminately, then disputing major repairs such as structural leaks.
- ✗Ignoring a tenant’s report of a material fault — the Civil Transactions Law gives the tenant the right to seek a rent reduction, termination, or to repair and recover the cost.
- ✗Entering to carry out repairs without notifying the tenant in advance, instead of informing them in good time before work starts.
- ✗Hiring an unlicensed provider to manage the property’s technical affairs on the owner’s behalf, although facilities management is a real estate service that requires a licence.
International Differences
Splitting maintenance between landlord and tenant is a general rule in most civil codes: major repairs fall on the landlord and minor upkeep on the tenant. Egypt and the UAE follow similar logic with different details; Turkey’s Code of Obligations places cleaning and customary minor repair costs on the tenant; and in the UK statute makes landlords responsible for the structure and key installations in short residential lettings. The strength of the modern Saudi framework is that, since December 2023, the Civil Transactions Law gives tenants a clear mechanism to repair and deduct from rent when the landlord fails to act, while leaving the parties free to agree otherwise.
