A schedule of condition is a dated, photographic and written record of the state of a building at a fixed point in time, normally taken before a lease starts and annexed to it. Its purpose is narrow and valuable: it fixes the starting point, so that at the end of the term the tenant is not asked to hand back a better building than the one it took. The record does nothing on its own. It works only where the lease refers to it, and it is worth what its detail is worth on the day someone argues about a cracked slab five years later.
What the record is, and what it is not
It is evidence, not an obligation. The document sets out what the building looked like on a stated date: written descriptions, dated photographs keyed to a plan, and usually a short note of anything already defective. It is not a building survey, because it does not advise you whether to take the property. It is not a valuation. It is not a snagging list, which belongs to a newly completed building and to the contractor’s return visits. And it is not a defence in itself. In a dispute at the end of a term, the landlord’s surveyor will produce a priced schedule of dilapidations describing what should be repaired, replaced or removed. The baseline record is the tenant’s answer to one specific part of that claim: the part that asks for a condition the building never had. That is why the wording matters as much as the photographs. A record annexed to a lease that says nothing about it is a well-organised set of pictures with no legal effect.
How the lease has to use it
Through a limiting clause, and there is a standard way to write it. The repairing obligation is qualified so that the tenant is not required to put or keep the premises in any better state than is evidenced by the annexed record. Three details decide whether that clause works. First, annexation: the schedule must be attached to the lease itself, signed or initialled by both parties, with the date stated and the photographs legible in the executed copy rather than in an email nobody kept. Second, scope: it must cover the parts that will be argued about, including the areas a tenant rarely inspects such as the roof, the drainage and the yard. Third, reach: the clause should qualify not only repair but also decoration and reinstatement where the alterations were already there when you arrived. Occupiers often get the first detail right and the third wrong, then discover at the end of the term that the qualification applies to repair while the expensive item on the schedule is described as something else.
What belongs in a schedule of condition for an industrial building
The items that generate the money. The floor slab first, photographed joint by joint with existing cracks, spalling, patched repairs and any surface treatment noted, because the slab is where a handback claim can escalate fastest. Then the envelope: roof sheets, roof lights, gutters and any evidence of ponding or previous repair. Then the doors and dock equipment: levellers, shelters, seals, bollards, guide rails, and the damage to columns and corners that trucks leave over a decade. Then the yard: surface condition, kerbs, drainage channels, line markings and the state of the gatehouse. Inside, the mechanical and electrical items with their inspection labels visible, including sprinkler valve sets, heating units, lighting and the distribution boards. Add meter readings, the number and position of racking anchor points that already exist, and a plan showing where each photograph was taken from. On our reading, an industrial record that runs to thirty photographs is decoration; one that runs to several hundred, indexed to a plan, is evidence.
When to take one, and who pays
Before the lease is signed, and again whenever the position changes. The first is the important one: the record has to describe the building as taken, so it is prepared during negotiation and annexed at completion, not commissioned afterwards. A second is worth taking before a major fit-out, so that damage caused by your own contractor is separated from what was already there. A third belongs at assignment, so an incoming tenant knows exactly what it is inheriting and the outgoing one has a closing position. A fourth is the mirror image at the end: a dated record on the day of handback, with the keys logged, which protects against deterioration that happens after you leave and before the landlord relets. Cost is modest against what it prevents, usually a surveyor’s day or two on a mid-sized unit, and the fee is normally the tenant’s own because the tenant is the party the record protects. That is the trade to weigh: a small professional fee at the start against an argument at the end that starts at whatever number the other side chooses.
Why the baseline matters more in Slovakia
Because there is less standing behind you here. In England and Wales an entire apparatus limits what a landlord can recover: the RICS professional standard on dilapidations sets out that damages are typically the lower of the cost of the works and the diminution in value of the landlord’s interest, and statute caps repair damages. Slovakia has no equivalent regime. DLA Piper’s country guidance is clear that the parties must agree whether the premises need to be restored to their original condition at the end of the lease period and how the costs and benefits of alterations are allocated, and that without the landlord’s consent to changes the tenant will be required to restore the property to its original condition. Where the limits are contractual rather than statutory, the annexed record is doing work that legislation does elsewhere. The market timing helps: with renegotiations at 54 per cent of total demand in the first quarter of 2026, vacancy at 7.72 per cent and prime rent down to EUR 5.30 per square metre per month, Cushman and Wakefield describe conditions that have shifted further towards tenants. A landlord competing for a renewal has little reason to refuse a baseline record.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a schedule of condition cap the whole handback claim?
No. It limits the condition-related part of the claim to the state recorded at the start. Removing your own alterations, clearing the building and handing over statutory certificates are separate obligations that the record does not touch.
Who should prepare it?
A building surveyor instructed by the tenant, not the landlord’s agent and not the tenant’s own facilities team with a phone. The value of the document in a dispute depends on the person who made it being able to explain the method, the date and the coverage.
Is it worth taking on a brand-new building?
Yes, for a different reason. On a new unit the record is thin by definition, and its role is to fix the standard of the day-one specification so that later wear is measured from a documented starting point. It also sits alongside the defects liability period rather than replacing it.
What if the landlord refuses to annex one?
Take the record anyway and serve a copy with a covering letter before occupation. Unannexed, it carries less weight than a schedule the lease refers to, but a contemporaneous dated record is still far better evidence than recollection, and refusal is itself worth noting in the negotiation.