Facility management
Facility management debt collection in the UAE
Annual maintenance contracts, community and service charges, reactive works and manpower supply. FM debt is recurring rather than one-off, which changes both the risk and the right moment to act.
What we recover
- Annual maintenance contract balances — MEP, HVAC, lifts, cleaning, security and integrated FM.
- Reactive and additional works carried out outside the contract scope. The most commonly disputed category in FM.
- Community and service charges where the FM provider or owners' association is the creditor. See real estate.
- Manpower and staffing supply billed monthly against a services agreement.
- Mobilisation and equipment costs on contracts terminated early.
The recurring-debt problem
FM debt behaves differently from one-off supply debt in a way that consistently costs providers money. The service is continuous, so when a client stops paying, the provider keeps delivering — staff are already deployed, the site still needs covering, and stopping feels like the more damaging option.
The result is that FM arrears grow month on month while the commercial relationship stays superficially intact. By the time the provider acts, the balance is large enough that the client genuinely cannot clear it in one payment, which makes the negotiation harder than it would have been at month two.
Act at two months of arrears, not at eight. A demand at two months usually recovers the balance and preserves the contract. A demand at eight months usually ends both. There is no cost to having the account assessed while you decide.
Additional works disputes
The recurring argument in FM: whether a job was covered by the AMC or was chargeable extra. It is decided by the contract scope and by whether the works were instructed in writing before they were carried out.
In practice most of these arise because a site contact requested something verbally and the provider did it to keep the client happy. That is commercially sensible and evidentially weak. Job cards signed on completion by the client's representative are frequently what saves these claims — send them.
What to send
- The AMC or services agreement, including the scope and the payment terms.
- Invoices and the statement of account.
- Signed job cards, service reports and timesheets — the operational record is what carries FM claims.
- Written instructions for any additional works.
- Any acknowledgement of the balance in correspondence.
Terminated contracts
Where a client terminated early, the claim may cover both unpaid arrears and amounts due under the termination provisions. Those are two distinct claims with different evidence behind them, and the contract terms decide the second. Send the agreement, not just the invoices.
FM FAQs
Common questions
Should we stop the service while the debt is chased?
That is a contractual and operational decision with its own risks, particularly on life-safety systems, and it is not one a collection agency should make for you. What we can say is that continuing indefinitely while arrears build is the pattern that turns a recoverable balance into an unrecoverable one.
The client says the additional works were within the AMC scope.
The contract scope decides it, supported by whether the works were instructed in writing. Signed job cards are frequently what carries these claims — send everything the technicians completed on site.
Can we recover mobilisation costs on a contract cancelled early?
It depends on the termination provisions in the agreement. It is a separate claim from the unpaid arrears, with different evidence behind it.
We have arrears across several buildings and one client. One claim or many?
One claim against the contracting entity, provided the same legal entity holds all the contracts. Verifying that is part of the assessment.