Handing Over Building Management to a New Manager: Checklist

By P-Soft Expert Team October 25, 2026 10 min read

When handing over building management to a new manager, five things must change hands together: the cash position and petty cash book, each unit’s outstanding balance, contracts and insurance dates, keys and door codes, and letters and meeting minutes. If all of this already lives in building management software, the handover shrinks from a tense evening to a few role changes.

The committee’s term has ended, the owners have chosen someone new, and the outgoing manager is expected to hand over “everything”. In practice, everything tends to mean a folder of invoices, a handwritten notebook, some spreadsheets on a personal laptop and a bunch of unlabelled keys. The new manager accepts it in good faith, and a few months later discovers that the fire insurance quietly lapsed, or that one flat insists it paid its charges in cash to the previous manager. What follows is general practical advice for a change of building manager, not legal advice; for anything disputed, your building’s own rules and the owners’ decisions take precedence.

What usually gets lost when a building manager changes?

The missing pieces are remarkably similar from one building to the next:

The petty cash book: the outgoing manager paid small bills out of pocket and meant to settle up later. “Later” never comes.
Unpaid charges: nobody can say for sure which flats really owe money and which paid without the receipt being recorded.
Contracts: the lift maintenance agreement, the caretaker’s contract or the cleaning company’s terms sit in a drawer at the previous manager’s home.
Insurance dates: no one remembers when the building policy was renewed or when it runs out.
Keys and codes: boiler room, roof, plant room, and the garage door code.
Letters and minutes: past meeting decisions, correspondence with the council, a formal warning issued to one unit, now nowhere to be found.
Occupancy history: when the current tenant moved in and who owned the flat before.

Handover checklist for building accounts and documents

Send this list to both people before the meeting and tick it off line by line. Ideally one or two committee members or an owners’ representative attend, so the handover is not a private exchange between two individuals.

Area	What to hand over	How to check it
Cash and bank	Building account balance, cash box and petty cash	Match balances against the statement on handover day
Income and expenses	Categorised list of receipts and payments for the term	An invoice or receipt for every large expense
Unit balances	What each flat owes or is owed	Compare with recorded receipts; list disputed items separately
Contracts	Lift, caretaker, cleaning, gardening and similar	Counterparty, amount, advance paid and end date
Insurance	Policies for the building and common areas	Expiry date and insurer
Keys and codes	Numbered list of keys and door codes	Hand over in person, then change the codes
Documents	Minutes, letters, warnings	Index with date and subject
Unit records	Owner, tenant, phone number, occupants	Check against today’s situation
Access	User accounts, SMS panel, bank signatory	Remove the old manager’s access, set up the new one

Finish with a short handover record signed by both sides that names every open item, such as an expense without an invoice or a balance a flat disputes. Open items are not a failure. Hiding them is.

Why a committee handover is hard on paper and spreadsheets

The real problem is rarely bad faith; it is fragmentation. The building’s information is spread across the manager’s memory, their phone, a notebook and several files, and at handover it all has to be dug out and rebuilt. Every spreadsheet has its own version and nobody is certain which is the latest. The password for the SMS panel or the building’s email is often shared by several people, and after the change no one dares to reset it because they do not know what depends on it.

When records have been kept in one system from the start, a handover simply means the new manager signs into the same place and sees the whole history.

How building management software keeps continuity

Hamkhoneh, P-Soft’s building management software, is organised in a way that makes a change of manager far less painful. Each feature is listed with its plan so expectations stay accurate.

Income and expenses in clear categories (all plans)

Every payment in and out is recorded with a category, and a straightforward cash box and petty cash ledger suit managers with no bookkeeping background. From day one the new manager can see where money came from and where it went, and an Excel export is ready for the handover meeting.

General ledger, trial balance and period closing (Pro and Elite)

These plans add full accounting: a general ledger and trial balance, profit-and-loss and balance-sheet reports, and period closing. The best moment to close the period is just before the handover. Balances become final and the newcomer starts the new term from clean figures. For what owners expect to see in the yearly report, read the building’s annual financial report.

Ownership and residency history

Each unit keeps its owner, tenant and staff files plus a history of who owned it and who lived there. When the new manager inherits an old balance, they can see who lived in the flat during those months.

Contractor agreements (Pro and Elite)

Full accounting also records contractor agreements, advance payments, loans, assets and the building’s own store of supplies. The lift contract no longer lives in someone’s drawer and no longer leaves with them.

Insurance and contract expiry alerts (Elite)

On Elite, the system warns you before insurance policies and contracts expire, which is exactly what slips through in the first months of a new term. How to record those agreements is covered in building contracts and insurance alerts.

Secretariat and minutes archive (Pro and Elite)

Filing minutes and letters in the internal secretariat keeps past decisions and printed warnings with the building, not with the former manager. For tips on writing minutes, see our general assembly guide.

Changing the building manager in the system: moving permissions

Access is the most sensitive part of any handover. Hamkhoneh keeps roles separate for manager, board member, accountant, owner, tenant and guard, and lets you revoke one specific permission from one person. This is available on every plan and makes the switch straightforward:

Give the new manager the manager role.
Remove the previous manager’s management role. If they still own or live in a flat, they keep only their owner or tenant role.
If a board member stays on but should no longer touch a particular area, revoke just that one permission and leave the rest of their role intact.
Swap an outgoing accountant or board member the same way.

Because sign-in uses a mobile number and a one-time code, there is no shared password to pass from the old manager to the new one, and nothing to reset afterwards. Everyone logs in with their own number, and once a role is removed, that access ends.

What if the previous term’s accounts are in Excel or a notebook?

A change of manager is a good moment for a clean start. The P-Soft team migrates the building’s prior data from Excel or earlier software into Hamkhoneh, with the scope agreed in the contract or plan; Pro support also covers keying in the building’s basic data. A practical tip: record the balances agreed and signed on handover day as the opening point, so the first figure in the system matches the handover record.

Which plan suits a building that is changing managers?

Start: one building with up to 30 units; income and expenses, cash box and petty cash, unit records, roles and SMS-code sign-in. Enough for a simple handover.
Pro: up to 300 units; adds the general ledger and period closing, contractor agreements, secretariat and minutes archive.
Elite: unlimited units and several buildings from one account, plus insurance and contract expiry alerts; a good fit for property management companies whose site managers change over time.

The complete plan comparison sits on the Hamkhoneh building management software overview.

Frequently Asked Questions

What documents do I need when handing over building management to a new manager?

At minimum: cash and account balances, each unit’s outstanding balance, contracts, insurance policies, keys and meeting minutes, plus a handover record signed by both sides.

Does the previous manager keep access to the software after the handover?

Not once the management role is removed. If they own or rent a flat, they sign in only with that owner or tenant role.

Will the new manager still see the previous term’s records?

Yes. Income and expenses, unit records and ownership and residency history stay in the system and are not erased when the manager changes.

Which Hamkhoneh plan has insurance expiry alerts?

Insurance and contract expiry alerts are included only in the Elite plan.

Is this checklist legal advice?

No. It is a general practical checklist. For disputes, rely on your building’s rules, the owners’ decisions or a qualified adviser.

Want your next change of manager to be a non-event? Explore our building management software and ask for a demo.