Shop touch-ups after a fit-out, not a strip-out

A retailer in Singapore asks for a handyman at three different moments, and the invoices should not be mixed. The first is the week after the fit-out contractor leaves: a showcase door that will not lock, a silicone joint that was missed, a shutter that stops halfway. The second is the week before an SFA or NEA look at a food shop. The third is the week the lease ends and the landlord’s agent walks the unit with a yield-up clause. This page is the first, and it points at the other two when the photos are actually those jobs.

The unit might be a ground-floor HDB shop, a conserved shophouse, a strata shop in a mixed development, or a mall lot. The hardware price does not become a “shophouse rate”. What changes is who may approve a hole in a party wall, a fascia, or a common corridor. An HDB flat’s renovation permit is for a flat. Do not paste that permit onto a shop lease. If the premises are a flat that someone is using as a shop, say so, because the permit guide then matters.

Competitors often print a shop call-out that covers “everything minor”. This catalogue does not. A showcase lock, hinge and sliding track are S$250 to S$550 on the mall page, and that band is the hardware whether or not the mall’s night row is also needed. The night row, S$380 to S$650, is permit-to-work admin plus one hardware fix when the centre will not allow daytime work. It is not a second copy of the hardware price.

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

A touch-up starts from a marked plan or a phone album, not from a walk that grows. Each item is either a published row or quote on inspection before tools come out. Silicone that is cut out and replaced in one mouldy zone is S$80 to S$150. That sentence is a joint. It is not a licence to redraw the splashback. A glass entrance that scrapes is aligned at S$250 to S$420. Oil at the pivot moves the job to a floor spring at S$450 to S$850. The shutter, if the complaint is the metal curtain and not the glass door, goes to the shutter page: track and limits S$250 to S$480, a spring or motor overhaul S$580 to S$1,350, a folding grille S$260 to S$520.

In a food shop the finishes are specified. NEA’s Code of Practice on Environmental Health, section 3.2, asks for a kitchen floor graded to floor traps, built of non-slip impervious material, with the wall-to-floor edge coved, and for preparation and servery walls lined with glazed tiles or another suitable impervious material not less than 1.5 m high. SFA’s food-shop checklist repeats those points and prefers a non-hand-operated tap at the hand-wash basin. Cracked kitchen tile and food-safe grout sealing are S$380 to S$750. Stainless welding, wall-gap silicone and a grease-trap cover are S$320 to S$680. A 48-hour pre-audit bundle is S$680 to S$1,800. Household emulsion on a food-preparation wall is the sloppy version of this visit. We do not issue the food-shop licence and we do not sign the pest-control contract.

Make-good at the end of the lease is not a touch-up with a larger adjective. Micro-reinstatement, the small-office scope of holes, a short run of trunking, patch paint and a usable ceiling grid, is S$1,800 to S$4,500. A small shop of about 300 sq ft that needs a real strip-out is S$3,000 to S$7,500. Debris clearing starts from S$300. Removing a false ceiling is S$300 to S$700 a room. One partition removed and made good is S$550 to S$1,300. Those sentences live on the reinstatement page. Using a showcase price to “include reinstatement” is how a landlord’s deduction appears later.

Label the album. “Defects from the fit-out contractor” is a touch-up. “Inspector coming” is the F&B page if the photos are tiles, gaskets, gaps and a washroom door. “Keys back on Friday” is reinstatement. Mixed albums get mixed quotes, each line named. A mall lot adds the question of daytime access. If the centre wants the work after trading hours, the overnight row is a line of its own.

A shophouse fascia, a lightbox, or a sign hanging over a five-foot way is the signage page. There is no mounting price. Conservation shophouses have a separate URA permission before a sign goes up. Do not ask the touch-up visit to drill a conserved plaster feature because the landlord wants the logo higher.

Keep the three shop moments apart. The dollar follows the moment.

Questions a business should ask

A shop quote that cannot answer these is a guess.

1. Is this line a touch-up, an inspection repair, or a yield-up?
2. Which published band is the shutter, and does it include the motor?
3. If the unit is a food shop, are the tiles and the cove in the scope or only the hardware?
4. Does the mall require a permit to work, and is S$380 to S$650 written as that admin?
5. Who owns the shutter and the glass door, the tenant or the landlord?
6. Will anyone pin a fire shutter or remove a washroom closer?
7. Is a sign included? If the answer is a price, ask where that price is printed. It is not printed here.
8. Is the premises an HDB flat, an HDB shop, or a private shophouse? The permit path is not the same.

Say the tenure in the first message. A pretty shopfront photo does not tell us who owns the wall.

NEA’s environmental-health code and SFA’s food-shop checklist are about the premises being cleanable: floors, coves, tiles to at least 1.5 m in the preparation and servery, a sink, a hand-wash basin. The F&B handyman page prices the minor works an inspector can see. Pest control and the licence stay with the operator. A washroom door that must close itself is the closer page if the closer is the fault, and the F&B page if the published bundle already names a self-closing washroom door at S$280 to S$650 together with a chiller gasket.

SCDF’s concern at a shopfront is that a fire shutter can still drop and that an escape door is not wedged. The shutter page on this site says a fire-rated shutter keeps a working drop test and that we do not pin one open. BCA’s advertisement licensing is the sign question, covered on the signage page, including URA’s central-area circular and the conservation rules for a five-foot way.

BCA plan approval is a separate question from a hinge. Insignificant building works are listed in the First Schedule, and BCA tells owners to ask a qualified person before they assume an alteration is exempt. Removing a wall to open two shops into one is not a touch-up. That scope stops for advice. Homey Furnishing does not sign an HDB renovation permit. V On Construction does, and only when the premises are actually in that permit system.

Official pages

• NEA Code of Practice on Environmental Health, food-shop section 3.2
• SFA food-shop licence checklist
• BCA: building works that do not need plan approval

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.

A shop punch list uses the row for each fitting. The mall night row is added only when the mall requires that slot. It does not replace the hardware price and it is not charged on a shophouse by habit.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Send the fit-out contractor’s defect list. Re-typing it as “general shop repair” hides the rows.
• Book tiles and the shutter on the same mobilisation if the mall allows one slot. Two nights mean two conversations with the centre.
• Do not repaint a food wall with household paint the week before an inspection. The tile row exists because paint is the wrong surface.
• Read the yield-up clause before you pay for a touch-up the landlord will ask you to remove.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

Touch-up rows and the reinstatement rows are both printed. A sign is not.

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.

• Mall overnight work
• Roller shutters
• F&B inspection repairs
• Lease-end reinstatement
• Sign mounting
• How to read a yield-up price

Shutters and showcases stay on this page. Shelves, the floor, the lights and an HDB shop’s permission are separate.

• HDB neighbourhood shops
• Display shelves
• Shop floors
• HDB shop rules