Rauch Safety & Engineering

A fixed-fee review of what your documents obligate — and what they establish.

The Service Agreement & Records Review is a document-only engineering review of the owner’s position on an installed building maintenance unit or façade access system: the service agreement, the compliance and certification file, and the acceptance records. $8,500. Thirty days. Performed for the owner, independently of every other party on the asset.

THE POSITION

Two documents govern everything. Most owners have read neither closely.

Every obligation on your permanent access systems — service scope, inspection responsibility, certification, response times, renewal terms — lives in two places: the agreement you signed and the records you hold. Both were drafted by parties other than the owner, and on most assets neither has been read closely since execution. The annual certificate on file may establish less than you believe it does; the agreement may obligate less — or more — than you assume.

If several of those points have never been independently read on your behalf, that doesn’t mean anything is wrong. It means something is unverified — and unverified can be resolved.

The occasions on which this surfaces are predictable: a contract renewal, an underwriter’s question, an ownership transition, an inherited asset with an incomplete file, a decision point on the system itself. On each of them, the owner’s position is whatever the documents say it is. The Review establishes what that is — before the occasion arrives.

WHAT THE REVIEW IS

Documents, read for the owner.

The Review is a fixed-fee, fixed-scope engineering review of documents: the service agreement, the inspection and certification records, and the acceptance and turnover file for the asset’s permanent access systems. There is no site visit and no evaluation of the installed system — the Installed Systems Engineering Review™ exists for the machine. There is no contact with any other party. Every finding is a statement about the owner’s own position: what the agreement obligates and permits, what the file establishes and where it is silent, and what the owner may wish to obtain, confirm, or raise at the next renewal or decision point.

Four bodies of reading, integrated.

The agreement.

Service scope and exclusions, escalators, auto-renewal and termination mechanics, response-time obligations, and the agreement’s allocation of inspection, certification, and record-keeping responsibility — read against market-standard structures, stated as the owner’s position.

The compliance file.

Inspection and certification records read against what OSHA 1910.66, ASME A120.1, and the applicable local regime actually require — and a plain statement of what the file does and does not establish.

The acceptance record.

What the owner holds from commissioning, acceptance testing, and turnover; what an underwriter, a transaction counterparty, or an authority would find on asking; what is missing, and from whom each missing item can be requested.

Renewal preparation.

The points the owner is positioned to raise at the next renewal — records to request, terms to revisit, obligations to confirm — stated as owner actions.

WHAT THE REVIEW IS NOT

Defined by its boundaries.

Not a cost or pricing audit.

The Review contains no analysis of, and no opinion on, any party’s charges, pricing, workmanship, recommendations, or conduct. That exclusion is contractual and deliberate: the Review reads the owner’s documents; it does not adjudicate the owner’s counterparties.

Not an inspection or system evaluation.

No site visit is performed and no conclusion is reached about the installed system’s condition. Where the question is the machine rather than the documents, the Installed Systems Engineering Review™ is the instrument.

Not a compliance certification.

The Review does not certify regulatory, code, or insurance compliance. It states what the owner’s records establish — which is a different, and prior, question.

Not an open-ended relationship.

The Review is a complete professional engagement in itself, under a standard-form engagement letter at published pricing. It creates no obligation on either side beyond its own scope. The owner is free to act on it, retain it for the record, or engage other parties for any subsequent work. The intended use of its deliverables is defined in the engagement letter, and the Review is governed by the Service Agreement & Records Review Policy.

THE DELIVERABLE

The Records Review Memo.

The Review produces a documented finding — the Records Review Memo — stating:

The owner’s contractual position: what the agreement obligates, permits, and leaves open.
What the compliance and certification file establishes, and where it is silent.
The state of the acceptance and turnover record, each gap, and the source from which it can be closed.
A prioritized set of owner actions ahead of the next renewal or decision point.

The Memo is the owner’s record, prepared solely to assist the owner in administering the asset. It is delivered in PDF and editable format, with a scheduled findings briefing, and is preserved under RSE’s records-custody discipline.

FEE & TIMELINE

Stated plainly.

The Review is $8,500, fixed, for a single asset — one system, one agreement, the full records file. Additional systems on the same asset are $3,500 each under the same engagement letter. Portfolios of three or more assets are priced by proposal, with a portfolio-level position roll-up included.

Delivery is 30 days from complete document receipt. Half of the fee is due on execution of the engagement letter, half on delivery of the Memo. Where a renewal date is approaching, the Review is scheduled to complete at least 30 days before it, at no premium — that is its highest-leverage timing.

HOW THE ENGAGEMENT PROCEEDS

Standard sequence.

Engagement request through the Engage RSE form — select Service Agreement & Records Review.

Conflict check and confirmation of the document set. No scoping call is required for a conventional asset.

Standard-form engagement letter at the published fee. The engagement forms on execution and initial payment.

Secure document delivery, thirty-day review, Memo delivery, and findings briefing.

WHERE FINDINGS LEAD

Each engagement stands alone. The position it establishes does not expire with it.

Where the Memo surfaces questions about the installed system, the Installed Systems Engineering Review™ follows. Where it establishes the case for retrofit or replacement, engineering governance of that work is a separate engagement under the owner-direct model.

A complete engagement in itself. The Records Review establishes the owner’s current engineering record and position. Owners who want that position maintained as conditions, inspections, certifications, and decisions change may continue under RSE’s Standing Owner’s Engineer Program. The completed Records Review becomes the program baseline.

Not certain the Review is the right instrument? The Ten Questions are a two-minute self-check of this position.

The owner’s documents, read for the owner.

$8,500. Thirty days. A complete engagement in itself.