In this article / TL;DR 

Most maintenance jobs that go wrong don't fail in the repair. They get lost in the handoff between the property owner and the contractor: a request forwarded by email, a phone call nobody logged, a job finished without anyone telling the tenant. The fix is to agree ground rules up front (how jobs arrive, how fast, what "done" means), to work from one shared view of each job, and to review the numbers together. Ülemiste City and its maintenance partner Grandhaus run around 800 work orders a month on that basis. 

Almost every office building depends on at least one outside maintenance contractor, and usually several. The contractor knows the plant room. You know the tenants. The tenant just wants the radiator fixed. 

On paper, the relationship is simple: you pass on the job, they do it. In practice, the job passes through several hands, and each handoff is a chance for it to stall. When it does, the tenant blames you, you blame the contractor, and the contractor says nobody told them. 

This article is about the space between you and your contractor, and how to stop jobs disappearing into it.

Where do jobs get lost between owner and contractor? 

At the handoffs. A typical job changes hands at least three times: tenant to property team, property team to contractor, and contractor back to property team and tenant. Each handoff by email or phone can be missed. 

The most common failure points: 

• The job never properly arrives. It's forwarded in an email thread or mentioned on a call, and the contractor has no single record to works from. 

• Nobody knows where it stands. The contractor is on it, but the property team can't see that, so they chase. Chasing by email is slow and produces more email. 

• "Done" means different things. The contractor closes the job. The tenant still has a problem, or doesn't know it was fixed. 

• Agreements disappear. Who said they'd come back on Thursday? It's in someone's inbox, if it's in one at all. 

None of these is about the quality of the contractor's work. They're about the information around it.  

What should you agree with your contractor up front? 

Five things, written down before the first job: how jobs reach them, how fast they respond by priority, how often they update, what "done" means, and how problems escalate. 

1. How jobs arrive. One channel only. If jobs arrive by email, phone and a shared spreadsheet, at least one will be missed. When Ülemiste City partnered with Grandhaus, its property maintenance provider, they agreed to direct all work orders to Grandhaus through Hausing. This step moved Ülemiste City from using Hausing in the background to running its maintenance through it. 

2. Response times by priority. Agree what counts as urgent and what each level means in hours or days. A same-day fault in a shared lobby is not the same as a sticking door in a meeting room, and the contractor should not have to guess which is which. 

3. Update frequency. Agree on when the contractor updates a job without being asked: when they accept it, when they start, when they're waiting on parts, when they finish. Every update they make is a chase you don't have to. 

4. What "done" means. At Ülemiste City, service partners must always add a comment about the work performed, and that comment is forwarded to the tenant. A short note on what was found, what was fixed and whether it's likely to recur turns a closed ticket into something useful. Photos and completion acts belong here too. 

5. Escalation. Who calls whom when a job is late, and when. Better decided calmly in advance than in the middle of a leak. 

A small rule from the same playbook helps on your side of the handoff: Ülemiste City requires a phone number on every request, so the contractor can reach the person who reported the issue directly instead of asking the property team to relay questions. 

Why does working from one shared view matter so much? 

Because when the property team, the contractor and the tenant all see the same job, the handoffs stop being blind. 

In Hausing, each job is a single work order with its description, category, assignee, deadline, status, photos, documents and chat attached. The tenant follows progress through their portal. The contractor updates the same task through the contractor portal. The property team sees it all without having to ask anyone. 

Juris at Colliers described what that changes day to day: "What I like about Hausing is the 3-way communication between client, property manager and contractor, easy to add docs with drag-and-drop, delegating tasks, overview of all tickets." 

It also has to be easy for the contractor, or they won't use it. Partners don't need an account to take part. Liven emails tasks to service providers with a link to a simplified view; when the contractor marks the job complete, the developer and the client see it immediately. MyFitness works with partners who have no Hausing login at all: they get a link, see the job, accept it and mark it done. 

Taavi Konga at Liven put it simply: "When all communication moves to one platform, many follow-up calls - like checking whether the work has already started - become unnecessary." 

What makes a contractor relationship work in the long run? 

Feedback in both directions, based on numbers both sides can see. 

Martin Mäekivi, who heads the property management team at Ülemiste City, is clear that the software is only half of it: "Hausing, combined with a good partner, makes for an excellent system. Without the right partner, it's just another tool. You need someone to process the information and provide feedback." 

Ülemiste City keeps an open, honest relationship with its partners, and feedback flows both ways. The two rules above, phone numbers on requests and comments on completion, are among the recent changes Ülemiste City made to smooth things for everyone involved. When the contractor tells you which requests arrive without enough information, the fix is often on your side. 

Shared data makes those conversations easier. Once every job lives in one system, both sides can see the same response times, completion rates and overdue jobs. A review meeting stops being a debate about impressions and becomes a look at the same list. 

What should you measure? 

Four numbers per contractor, reviewed together each quarter: 

• Response time against the agreed time for each priority. 

• Completion rate and the number of overdue jobs. 

• Jobs reopened because the problem came back. 

• Jobs closed with a comment, rather than a bare status change. 

The third one matters most over time. A fault that keeps coming back is either a workmanship problem or a sign that a repair should become a preventive maintenance routine. Either way, it's worth a conversation.

Where should you start? 

Write down the five ground rules with your main contractor before the next quarter starts. Even if nothing else changes, agreeing what "done" means will improve most handoffs. 

For a working example of an owner and contractor running high volume together, read the Ülemiste City case study. 

See how Hausing's work order system connects tenants, property teams and contractors on the same job. 

Want to see the contractor's side? Book a demo, and we'll show you exactly what your contractor receives.

Frequently asked questions 

Does my maintenance contractor need a Hausing account? 
No. Contractors receive each job via an email link that opens the contractor portal. There they can accept the job, update it, add photos and documents, and mark it complete without logging in. Partners who handle many jobs can get their own Hausing account instead. Several developers and construction companies already work this way: the developer sends jobs from their Hausing directly into the contractor’s Hausing.

What should a maintenance contractor agreement include besides price? 
How jobs are sent, response times by priority, when the contractor updates each job, what information a completed job must include, and who escalates late jobs to whom. In day-to-day work, these rules matter as much as the commercial terms. 

How often should we review performance with our contractor? 
A quarterly review is a sensible starting point. Review response times, completion rates, overdue jobs, and reopened jobs together, using the same data on both sides. 

What if our contractor won't update jobs in the system? 
Make it as easy as possible first: access by link, no login, a few clicks to update. Then make it part of the agreement. Ülemiste City requires service partners to add a comment to every completed job, and that comment goes to the tenant. 

Who should be the contractor's single point of contact? 
One person or role on the property team, such as a property services coordinator who receives requests, sets urgency and category, and assigns them to the right partner. Ülemiste City works this way at around 800 work orders a month.