At Building Passport, we’ve spent years working with building owners and operators across the UK, and one issue keeps coming up: the astonishing amount of money and time wasted due to missing, lost, or incomplete building information. Whether you're buying, selling, or managing properties, the absence of key documents can lead to operational delays, regulatory penalties, and costly remedial work.
In this post, we’re going to break down the financial implications of this problem, look at some hard figures to show just how much the sector is losing each year, and show how Building Passport can serve as a comprehensive solution that not only mitigates these risks but delivers a clear return on investment (ROI).
The Scope of the Problem
There are around 18 million commercial buildings in the UK alone. These buildings should come with a comprehensive set of documentation that covers everything from fire safety assessments to structural surveys and energy performance certificates (EPCs). Yet, time and time again, these records either don't exist, are incomplete, or have been lost as a building passes through multiple owners and operators.
From our experience at Building Passport, the most common gaps in building information include:
Fire Safety Documentation
Structural and Maintenance Records
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs)
Health and Safety Compliance Reports
Lease and Tenant Agreements
These gaps don’t just create headaches—they cost money. A fire safety audit can run between £5,000 and £15,000 for a multi-story residential block, and a full structural survey can cost up to £10,000 or more. Beyond these immediate costs, delays in accessing necessary documentation can lead to further financial losses in lost revenue, project delays, and even legal fees.
The Financial Impact on the Sector
Let’s look at the big picture. There are an estimated 18 million commercial buildings in the UK, with even more residential properties adding to the total number of structures. Research indicates that poor information management costs the UK construction sector £177 billion annually due to inefficiencies . While not all of this is tied directly to missing building information, it gives a sense of how much value is being lost due to poorly managed data.
Based on our own analysis at Building Passport, for each building, the cost of closing documentation gaps, conducting new surveys, and meeting compliance can range from £10,000 to £50,000 per building annually, depending on the complexity and age of the building.
If we conservatively estimate that just 10% of commercial buildings face these challenges each year, that’s still 1.8 million buildings experiencing costly information gaps. With an average loss of £25,000 per building, this adds up to a staggering £45 billion wasted annually in the UK alone.
How Building Passport Solves the Problem
At Building Passport, our mission is simple: to eliminate these inefficiencies by providing building owners and operators with a digital library that stores, organises, and safeguards critical building information for the long term. We store all information permanently in the cloud, even when a building isn’t under an active subscription, ensuring nothing is ever lost during its lifecycle. This is particularly important for buildings that may change hands multiple times or require detailed compliance reporting over several decades.
Here’s how Building Passport works to prevent these losses:
Centralised, Secure Storage: We provide a cloud-based platform to store all building-related files, documents, and compliance records in one easily accessible place. No more hunting through emails or lost files across different teams.
Compliance Monitoring: With customisable analytics checklists and templates, Building Passport helps ensure that all necessary documentation—whether for fire safety, health and safety, or EPCs—is up to date and complete, minimising regulatory risks.
Unlimited Users, Unlimited Storage: Unlike other systems, Building Passport doesn’t charge based on user licences or data volume, allowing every stakeholder to have access without additional costs. This makes it especially valuable for large, complex operations where multiple parties need to collaborate.
AI - Powered Information Management: We’re developing AI to not only help organise uploaded files but also intelligently search through them to extract key insights and surface vital information quickly. This eliminates the need to commission expensive repeat surveys or hire consultants just to piece together missing data.
Golden Thread Compliance: As the UK’s Building Safety Act increasingly demands a “golden thread” of safety-critical information for high-rise and residential buildings, Building Passport enables clients to ensure that this vital information is permanently stored, updated, and easily shared with the relevant stakeholders, including emergency services.
The ROI of Using Building Passport
To put things in perspective, let’s consider the ROI of using Building Passport across a building’s lifespan.
Cost Savings on Surveys and Reports: By maintaining comprehensive records from day one, property owners can avoid repeat surveys and audits. Over a 10-year period, a building might require 3-5 fire safety audits, which, without Building Passport, would cost £15,000 - £75,000 in total. With Building Passport, these costs could be avoided or minimised by enabling the relevant information to be kept up to date and easily accessible.
Regulatory Compliance: Avoiding fines for non-compliance is another area where the platform pays off. For example, failing to meet EPC requirements can result in fines up to £5,000 per building. Building Passport enables this critical documentation to never be lost or overlooked, providing further savings.
Operational Efficiency: Missing documentation can delay everything from tenant onboarding to insurance approvals. By reducing delays and improving operational efficiency, Building Passport helps owners get buildings fully operational faster. On a commercial building with annual revenues of £100,000 - £500,000, even a 10-day delay could cost £2,700 - £13,700 in lost income, which can be avoided with immediate access to necessary documentation.
Time Savings for Staff: Time is a significant cost that’s often overlooked. Searching for, retrieving, and re-creating lost documents can consume countless hours for property managers and their teams. Building Passport automates much of this process, freeing up time to focus on higher-value activities.
Conclusion: A Smarter, More Cost-Effective Future with Building Passport
The UK property sector is leaking billions of pounds each year due to inefficiencies in managing building information. Whether it’s lost documentation, regulatory fines, or delays in getting buildings operational, these problems are not only costly but avoidable.
By implementing Building Passport, owners and operators can safeguard their assets, helping ensure that critical information is always available, compliant, and easily accessible. With an estimated £45 billion wasted annually across the UK’s 18 million commercial buildings, the financial benefits of adopting a smarter solution are clear.
In the end, the return on investment for Building Passport is substantial. By minimising operational delays, reducing the need for costly repeat surveys, and ensuring compliance with key legislation, the platform delivers both immediate and long-term value to building owners. The sooner you adopt it, the sooner you can stop wasting money on missing information and start operating more efficiently.
Book a demo now to see for yourself!
Sources
UK Government, Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG), data on commercial buildings, 2021.
Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) Report, inefficiencies in the UK construction sector, 2020; Mace Group Report on industry inefficiencies, 2020.
Savills and Knight Frank, industry pricing for fire safety audits and structural surveys, 2022.
JLL and CBRE, estimates on compliance and documentation costs, 2022.
UK Government, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES), 2023.
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