Who Owns What: The Landlord and Tenant MEP Responsibility Matrix

Most leases say something like "the landlord maintains the base-building systems and the tenant maintains the systems within the demised premises". The trouble starts where those two zones meet: the AHU that serves one tenant but sits on another floor, the riser that feeds a tenant's own distribution board, the chilled-water pipe crossing one tenant's ceiling on its way to the next. A prose clause describes zones. Disputes happen at interfaces.

The fix is a component-by-component responsibility matrix, agreed before the next fault rather than argued during it. This guide covers the four questions it has to answer separately, fit-out permissions, common-plant billing, and an example matrix to negotiate from. It describes engineering boundaries and practical options; it does not draw legal conclusions, which belong to the lease and the parties' lawyers.

Ownership versus operating duty

"Base-build or tenant-installed" tells you who built a system. It does not tell you who runs it, who maintains it or who pays for it, and those can be four different answers for one component:

• Owns: whose asset register it is on, and who replaces it at the end of its life.
• Operates: who may start and stop it, change setpoints and isolate it.
• Maintains: whose maintenance contract covers it, and to what standard.
• Pays: energy and consumables, routine maintenance, breakdown repairs and replacement may each sit with a different party.

Some duties are also set outside the lease. The National Building Code of India 2016 (BIS) gives asset and facility management its own part, Part 12, covering the responsibilities of facility managers and of occupants for maintaining facilities. For electrical installations, the Central Electricity Authority's safety regulations of 2023 make the owner of an installation responsible for keeping it free from danger, and require additions or alterations to be approved by the Electrical Inspector or self-certified before they are connected. The matrix should therefore name, for each electrical installation, which party is treated as its owner for those duties (a point to confirm with your lawyer), and who holds and renews each statutory approval for the building.

Answer these questions for every component, with a drawing reference for each boundary:

Fit-out permissions

Tenant fit-outs touch base-build systems: sprinkler heads moved for a new ceiling, detectors relocated, FCUs connected to the landlord's chilled water, new distribution boards fed from the riser, pantry drains tied into the stack. The matrix needs a fit-out section that says, system by system:

• What needs prior approval and what drawings the tenant submits: layouts, single-line diagrams, load schedules, sprinkler and detector relocations, drainage connections.
• Who may work on life-safety systems. Changes to sprinklers, detection or fire alarm can affect the building's fire approval, so the matrix should say who may work on them and how changes are tested and recorded.
• Capacity limits. The electrical capacity allocated to the space (in kVA), chilled-water capacity (in TR or kW thermal) and riser or shaft space; our guide to riser and shaft capacity disputes covers that clash.
• Testing and sign-off, including the electrical self-certification or inspection that new tenant installations need before connection.
• As-built handover and reinstatement: updated drawings for every change, and what must be restored at the end of the lease.

The engineering line between base-build and fit-out is set out in more detail in where base-build MEP ends and fit-out begins.

Common-plant billing

Central chillers, cooling towers, shared AHUs, DG sets, lifts, pumps, sewage treatment and fire systems serve everyone, so their cost has to be shared by an agreed rule. Keep units distinct: electricity in kWh (or kVAh where the tariff bills kVAh), chilled water as thermal energy (kWh thermal or TR-hours) measured by BTU meters, and capacity in kVA or TR. Whether electricity costs may be recovered from tenants through sub-meters, and on what basis, depends on the state's electricity regulations and the building's supply arrangement; confirm it with the DISCOM and your lawyer before writing it into the lease.

For metering design and disputes, see tenant sub-metering and energy billing; for backup power, DG backup allocation between tenants.

Example matrix to negotiate from

The table below shows one way the split can be drawn in a multi-tenant building. It is an example to negotiate from, not a recommended or standard allocation; every cell is open to agreement, and the lease decides.

Keep the matrix live: a joint condition survey with photographs at handover, one shared fault log, an update after every fit-out change, and a pre-agreed emergency isolation protocol. When the renovation or fit-out comes, compare contractor quotations on the same scope with the MEP quotation comparison calculator, and plan the works under a turnkey EPC scope so the boundaries are drawn once, in the design. To start, share the existing layout, the landlord provisions and the renovation scope through a scope request; more planning guides are in Insights.

Sources and how to verify

• Bureau of Indian Standards, National Building Code of India 2016 (SP 7:2016): Part 12 Asset and Facility Management, as summarised in the BIS Guide for Using NBC 2016 (responsibilities of facility managers and occupants for maintenance; hard services including HVAC, electrical, plumbing, lifts and fire fighting).
• Central Electricity Authority, Measures relating to Safety and Electric Supply Regulations, 2023: regulation 32(8) on the owner's responsibility to keep installations free from danger, and regulation 45(6) on additions and alterations.

Confirm locally: the legal effect of the lease and any schedule with your lawyer, the basis for recovering electricity costs with your DISCOM, and who must hold and renew the building's fire approval with the fire authority.