Maintenance and periodic inspections in public buildings: obligations and timeframes

Law No. 6331 on Occupational Health and Safety applies to all public- and private-sector workplaces and activities. Under Article 7 of the Regulation on Health and Safety Conditions in the Use of Work Equipment, which is based on this Law, the equipment and installations listed in the tables of Annex III of the Regulation are subject to periodic inspection, and these inspections are carried out by persons authorised to perform periodic inspections. Annex III was restructured by the amendment dated 23 December 2025.

Article 7 also requires inspection after installation and before first use, after major maintenance and repair work, and whenever non-mobile equipment is relocated. A contract matching the template in the İSG-KATİP system must be drawn up between the employer and the authorised person at least one day before the inspection service. Inspection results are recorded with a wet signature or a secure electronic signature and kept available to be shown to the authorities on request.

For equipment and installations commonly found in building operations, the tables in Annex III set an inspection interval of at most one year where no interval is specified in the standards. This group includes:

• Heating boilers, compressed-air tanks, closed expansion tanks, boilers and accumulation tanks.
• Electrical installations and earthing installations, lightning protection installations, generators, transformers and batteries.
• Fire extinguishing systems (fire pumps, sprinklers, fire hose cabinets, hydrants and the like), portable fire extinguishers, and fire detection and warning systems.
• Escape-route pressurisation and smoke extraction systems, and ventilation and air-conditioning installations.

In each periodic inspection of pressure vessels, carried out at most once a year, a hydrostatic test is performed at the operating pressure; at intervals of at most three years, or after any major maintenance or repair, a hydrostatic test is also performed at the test pressure specified in the production standard. Equipment found non-conforming in the inspection report may not be used until the deficiencies are remedied, and the employer must mark this with a visible warning. Under Annex III, inspection reports are kept for as long as the equipment is in use, while maintenance and repair records are kept for the equipment's entire service life.

Lifts are subject to the Lift Periodic Inspection Regulation dated 4 May 2018. Under Article 8 of the Regulation, the periodic inspection of a lift in continuous use in a building must be carried out at least once a year by a Type A inspection body authorised by the Ministry of Industry and Technology that has signed a protocol with the relevant administration. The relevant administration is the municipality; for buildings outside municipal boundaries it is the provincial special administration. The obligation to have the inspection carried out rests with the relevant administration and the building manager, and the Regulation defines the building manager in public buildings as the responsible official of that building.

The inspection outcome is assessed in four groups — faultless, slightly defective, defective and unsafe — and a green, blue, yellow or red label is attached to the lift accordingly. A lift with a red label may not be used, and non-conformities must be remedied within sixty days at most. For a yellow label, this period is at most one hundred and twenty days. If a follow-up inspection at the end of the period finds that the non-conformity has not been remedied, the relevant administration disconnects the lift's power supply and seals it. If an accident occurs in the lift, the periodic inspection must be carried out again.

Municipalities occupy two distinct positions in this scheme: the relevant administration for lifts across the city, and the building manager for lifts in their own service buildings. For this reason, the inspection dates and label status of their own buildings must be monitored with the same rigour the municipality requires of others.

The Regulation on the Fire Protection of Buildings requires emergency lighting, directional signage, and fire detection and warning systems (Article 84), as well as fire extinguishing systems (Article 100), to undergo the periodic inspection, testing and maintenance required by the relevant standards, under the responsibility of the building owner, manager, or the building official to whom they have transferred this responsibility in writing.

Under Article 99 of the Regulation, fire extinguishers undergo a general on-site inspection once a year, and at the end of the fourth year the extinguishing agent is renewed and a hydrostatic test is carried out. The flues of liquid- and solid-fuel boilers must be cleaned by authorised persons at least twice a year (Article 58). At least one fire-extinguishing and evacuation drill must be held in the building each year (Article 129). Under Article 131, public buildings are inspected by the head of the institution and the person or board they designate, or by the inspectors or controllers of the administrative authority or the institution to which the building is affiliated.

The Regulation on Energy Performance in Buildings lists public buildings among service buildings. Under Article 25 of the Regulation, the energy performance certificate is valid for ten years from its date of issue. If a change is made that affects the building's annual primary energy requirement, the certificate is renewed within one year. One copy of the certificate is kept by the building owner or manager, and one copy is posted in a visible location at the building entrance.

Article 24 of the Regulation requires that the intervals for maintenance and testing of the architectural, mechanical, electrical and lighting systems affecting energy performance be defined in the report prepared at the design stage. The building owner, manager and, where one exists, the energy manager are responsible for carrying out this maintenance on time and for operating the building so that its energy performance does not fall below the level set at the design stage.

What these obligations have in common is that each must be proven by a document. Work equipment inspection reports must be made available to the authorities on request; the lift inspection report is kept by the relevant administration and the building manager; the fire regulation requires public buildings to be inspected by the head of the institution, the administrative authority or inspectors. In an audit, what shows that an institution has fulfilled its responsibility is not only that the inspection was carried out, but that the record of it is accessible.

The same records are also an input for budget planning. Annual inspection contracts are a recurring expense each year. The four-year refill-and-test cycle for extinguishers, the three-year hydrostatic test for pressure vessels, and the ten-year validity of the energy performance certificate each generate expenses concentrated in particular years. The requirement that a red or yellow lift label, out-of-service equipment, or a minor defect be remedied before the next inspection compresses unplanned repair spending into a short period. A maintenance history kept by building and by piece of equipment makes it possible to foresee in which year and in which building these expenses will arise, and to prepare the investment programme accordingly.