Grounds care for body corporates, property managers and site owners across the Bay of Plenty. A fixed annual programme, a written scope, the paperwork done properly — and an invoice that stays the same every month.
We’ll come and scope it, then quote an annual programme.
Most commercial work falls into one of these. They are priced and documented differently, so it is worth knowing which you need.
Everything in our Lawn Mowing and Garden & Trees categories can sit inside a commercial programme — mowing, hedges, tree work, mulch, weed control and clearances. You are not buying a narrower service, just a different way of contracting and paying for it.
A body corporate chair, a site manager and a property manager are buying three different things. Here is what each usually cares about most.
Wants: a number that does not move, and something defensible to put in front of owners.
Common property has to be maintained and reported on before each AGM, and a Long-Term Maintenance Plan needs reviewing every three years. A fixed annual grounds figure fits that far better than a stack of variable invoices nobody can forecast.
Wants: the frontage to look right, every single week.
Carpark islands, entrance beds and the strip customers walk past. On a retail site the grounds are the first impression, and a tired frontage reads as a tired business. Programmes step up through the growing season so the standard never visibly slips.
Wants: safe sightlines and no interruption to operations.
Growth over a truck exit is a safety issue rather than an aesthetic one. We work around forklift routes and loading bays, complete site inductions, and schedule noisy work outside your busy windows. Common across the Tauriko estate and Mount industrial area.
Wants: work done when nobody is on the grounds.
Term-time scheduling around students and events, holiday-period blocks for bigger jobs, and crew who understand that a site with children on it has different rules. Documentation supplied for your own health and safety records.
Wants: evidence, and one invoice instead of thirty.
Dated before and after photos on every clean-up, itemised so a line can be attributed to a specific property. Several addresses consolidated onto one monthly invoice. We do the work and document it, and stay out of anything between landlord and tenant.
Wants: sites presentable while they are still selling.
Verges and undeveloped lots kept down, show-home surrounds maintained, and dust managed on frontages near active earthworks. Handover to a body corporate programme once the stage is occupied.
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 you and your grounds contractor share duties. Here is what that means in practice, and the five things worth asking every bidder for.
Under HSWA, a contractor’s workers — and their subcontractors’ workers — are classed as workers of the lead contracting PCBU. If you engage a grounds contractor, their crew are, for health and safety purposes, effectively yours. You also cannot contract out of those duties, and you cannot offer or receive an indemnity for a fine. Which is why who you engage is a genuine decision, not a formality.
Not a claim on a website — the actual certificate, in date, naming the insurer and the cover. Any legitimate contractor will hand it over without being asked twice. Ours comes with the quote.
Not a generic template with your name typed in the header. It should reference the actual hazards on your property — the truck exit, the slope, the public walkway, the plant room door nobody expects to open.
If you run a sign-in, an induction or a permit system, the contractor completes it — every crew, every time, not just at the start. HSWA expects PCBUs sharing a workplace to consult, cooperate and coordinate, and this is what that looks like day to day.
What happens every visit, what is seasonal, what counts as a variation. Without it you get scope drift in one direction and invoice creep in the other, and nothing to point at when an owner asks what they are paying for.
WorkSafe expects contracting PCBUs to monitor the contract, not simply award it. Visit records, photos, and a named contact who answers the phone are the minimum. You cannot demonstrate oversight of a contractor you never hear from.
And the honest bit about price. WorkSafe states plainly that cost-based procurement and contract negotiation should not weaken health and safety standards. That is the regulator’s position, not our sales line. If a cheaper quote arrives without any of the five items above, that absence is usually exactly why it is cheaper — and the exposure does not stay with the contractor. General information, not legal advice.
Grass does not grow at one rate, so a good programme visits more in summer and less in winter. Charging that way would make your grounds line unforecastable — so we don’t.
We scope the site, price the whole year including the seasonal step up and back, then divide it into twelve. Your grounds line is the same number in February as it is in July, which is what makes it forecastable.
For a body corporate that matters more than the rate itself. Common property has to be maintained and reported to owners before each AGM, and a Long-Term Maintenance Plan is reviewed on a three-year cycle. A predictable annual figure slots into that. A pile of variable invoices does not.
Every programme is built from these. Which ones apply, and how often, is what the site walk works out.
We would rather list what we do not do than let it be assumed. If a job falls outside the scope we will say so and point you at someone who does it properly, rather than taking it on and learning on your site.
They turned up with an insurance certificate and a safety plan before we even asked, did the induction, and work around our truck movements rather than through them. The frontage has never looked better and the invoice is the same every month.
All twelve areas, though the type of site changes considerably from one to the next.
What managers and body corporate committees ask before going to tender.
A current public liability certificate, a site-specific safety plan written against the actual hazards on your property, and a written scope setting out what happens every visit, what is seasonal and what counts as a variation. Our crew complete whatever induction, sign-in or permit system you run, every visit rather than only at the start. If you have your own pre-qualification questionnaire, send it through and we will complete it.
Because visit frequency has to change through the year but your budget should not. We scope the site, price the full twelve months including the seasonal step up and back, then invoice it in twelve equal instalments. Your grounds line is the same in February as in July. For a body corporate that is the difference between a figure you can put in a maintenance plan and a stack of invoices nobody can forecast.
You share duties with us. Under HSWA 2015 a contractor’s workers, and their subcontractors’ workers, are classed as workers of the lead contracting PCBU, and PCBUs sharing a workplace must consult, cooperate and coordinate. You also cannot contract out of those duties or accept an indemnity for a fine. Practically it means engaging a contractor who brings proper documentation and completes your induction protects you as well as them. This is general information rather than legal advice — take your own on anything specific.
Yes, and on industrial and retail sites it is usually the sensible answer. Early starts before staff or customers arrive, or noisy work scheduled away from your busy windows. Tight time windows do affect how efficiently we can route a day, so it is worth raising at the site walk rather than after the price is set — but it is never a problem in itself.
Yes. Multiple sites consolidate onto a single monthly invoice broken down by address, so you can attribute cost per property without chasing a pile of separate bills. For rental portfolios, clean-ups come with dated before and after photos itemised the same way, which is what makes them usable at an inspection or a Tribunal.
We quote it and wait for approval. Nothing outside the agreed scope appears on an invoice without being agreed first — no “while we were there” charges. If it is urgent and safety-related, such as a branch across a walkway after a storm, we will make it safe, tell you immediately and quote the remainder.
Programmes are written annually because that is how seasons and budgets work, but there is a straightforward exit — we would rather you could leave than have you stuck and unhappy. What we do ask is enough notice to hand over cleanly, since a site that goes unmaintained through a growing season becomes a much bigger job for whoever picks it up.
Yes. Lawnify is GST registered, so GST is added at the standard rate on top of the quoted figure and shown on your invoice. Green waste disposal is already included in the programme price. Worth confirming when comparing bids, since not every quote you receive will be handled the same way.
