Discusses the practice of outsourcing; the offloading of non-core areas of a company's business onto an independent provider. Although the concept begins with the use of IT services, recently there has been an increase in property outsourcing. Warns that although there are many potential advantages in outsourcing there can also be problems if all the issues are not considered in advance such as possible future scenarios which may lead to a dispute. Mentions a recent HC case "Cable and Wireless PLC v IBM UK Ltd" ([2002] EWHC 2059 (Comm), [2002] 2 ALL ER 1041 (Comm)) which covered IT outsourcing. Its principles could also be applied to property outsourcing such as the issues surrounding the involvement of alternative dispute resolution. The obvious possible areas of friction in the property industry include pricing and benchmarking and ensuring that outsourcers provide and companies recognise added value services. Concludes by reinforcing the message that a failure to document the outsourcing agreements in detail can lead to disputes in the future.