Who instructs an office or shop repair, and who might pay

Last updated 31 October 2026.

Tenants ask us to “put it on the landlord”. Landlords ask us to “deduct it from the deposit”. Agents ask us to decide. We can say what the repair costs when a printed band matches. We cannot say who owes it. That sentence is in the lease, the MCST by-laws, or the mall’s handbook. This guide is how to separate those papers from the invoice.

The residential tenancy guide on this site discusses minor-repair clauses, mould, and fair wear for homes. A shop lease is often a different document: a longer term, a yield-up clause, a reinstatement schedule, and sometimes a clause that makes the tenant maintain the interior while the landlord keeps the structure and the facade. Do not paste the home clause onto the shop. Do not paste the shop clause onto an HDB room rental.

Common property is the second paper. In a strata mall or a strata office, the MCST owns the common property. A stair closer, a lobby tile, and a sign on the external wall may be theirs even when the problem annoys the tenant. The MCST minor-works page prices a fire stair closer and lock at S$140 to S$280 when that is the door. A tenant who pays us to change the MCST’s door can still be told to put it back.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking.

Make three piles before you call. Pile one: inside the demise, the tenant’s fittings, a showcase, a pantry tap on the existing point, a meeting-room hinge. Pile two: structure, facade, risers, fire stairs, the slab. Pile three: the mall’s rules about when you may work. Pile one can be booked by whoever the lease allows. Pile two needs the owner of that element. Pile three needs the permit to work described on the after-hours guide. The handyman price does not move an item from pile two into pile one.

Aircon is the home argument that also appears in small offices. A quarterly service of 3 to 5 fan-coil units is S$120 to S$180 with a stamped receipt. A shop or office lease may say the tenant services the units. It may say the landlord does. The receipt is evidence the work happened. It is not evidence of the clause. Mould on a wall is similar. If the wall is wet because the slab leaks, painting is premature and the payer may be whoever owns the slab. If the wall is a tenant’s condensation problem, the mould guide for homes is the closest reading, and it still does not award the invoice.

Food shops add NEA and SFA. The operator must keep the premises in the condition those checklists describe: tiles or another impervious lining, a cove, a graded floor. A landlord’s shell that was never tiled to 1.5 m is a fit-out question. A tenant’s cracked tile after two years of trading is often the tenant’s repair, at S$380 to S$750 if that row matches. “Often” is not a ruling. Read the lease. We will do the tiles for whoever books them.

Handover is where “who pays” becomes a list. Nail holes at S$150 to S$280 when they match the small-hole sentence. A bore in a fire door at S$160 to S$350. Micro-reinstatement at S$1,800 to S$4,500 when the clause wants that scope. The reinstatement guide tells you how to match the clause. Fair wear, including whether a nail hole is ordinary, is the tenancy conversation for homes and the lease conversation for shops. We fill holes we are asked to fill. We do not certify wear.

A letting agent’s commission, a tenant’s copy of a landlord’s identity card, and a rent increase are questions that arrive in the same search. We do not charge commission, we do not collect identity documents, and we do not publish rent. If the agent is the person who books and confirms payment, the invoice can be addressed to the agent. That is bookkeeping. It does not make the agent liable under the lease.

Write one line at the top of the WhatsApp: “I am the tenant” or “I am the landlord” or “I manage this unit and I will pay this invoice”. Then send the photos. If you want us to bill a third party who has not agreed, we will not. A property manager with a portfolio uses the landlord page. There is still no secret rate.

Sort the paper first. The price is the easy part.

Questions a business should ask

Ask these of the landlord and of the contractor. They answer different halves.

1. Does the lease put interior repairs on the tenant?
2. Is this item inside the demise?
3. Is the door or the wall common property?
4. Who is confirming this booking and paying this invoice?
5. Which printed band is the fitting?
6. Are you asking the handyman to decide fair wear? The answer should be no.
7. Is there a yield-up schedule that already lists this item?
8. Is the agent’s commission being added to the repair? It should not be.

Name the paper. A WhatsApp argument is not a paper.

URA’s renting rules and the short-term accommodation page matter when the “tenant” is a string of short stays in a private home. That use is illegal under URA’s definition. Who pays the repair is the wrong first question. The stay page explains the refusal. HDB rental approval, for a flat, is HDB’s process. We do not lodge it.

MOM’s rule for subcontractors on your premises is that the company must make the place safe to work, for example by giving proper access, and the contractor remains the employer of its own people. A landlord who will not provide access has not created a repair. A tenant who blocks the aisle has not either. BCA and SCDF still govern the fitting itself: insignificant works versus a real alteration, and a fire door that must close.

We are not a property agency. Questions about an agent’s statutory duties belong with CEA. Questions about eviction and rent belong outside this website. The mould guide and the tenancy guide are linked for homes. They are reading, not a judgment.

Official pages

• URA: short-term accommodation
• MOM: responsibility for contractors on your premises

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices the permit-exempt visit. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices hacking, a new layout, and an HDB renovation permit. Homey Furnishing is not a property agency, not a CEA practice, and not a MOM-licensed employment agency.

How you're charged

A job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. The hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. There is no fuel surcharge and no published night premium except the mall overnight row.

The invoice follows the booking confirmation. If the lease later says someone else should have paid, that recovery is between those parties. It does not rewrite the invoice after the work is done.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Agree the payer before the visit. Arguing afterwards does not change the band, and it delays the repair.
• Do not pay for common-property stairs from the tenant’s pocket unless the MCST has refused in writing and you accept the risk.
• Use the reinstatement bands at the end of the lease instead of a year of small “landlord” call-outs that the clause will not recognise.
• Keep the agent’s commission off the repair quote so the repair can be compared with the catalogue.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

These are repair prices. They are not a table of who owes them.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

• Home minor-repair clauses
• Book as a landlord or manager
• MCST common-property rates
• Yield-up costs
• Ceiling leaks in homes