Your right to repair
Your repair responsibilities
As a tenant, you have the following responsibilities for keeping
your home in good order:
- Carrying out any necessary decorating to your home.
- Repairing or replacing electric plugs, fuses, light bulbs, and
sink plugs.
- Maintaining your own fittings and appliances.
- Plumbing in your own washing machine.
- Fitting and maintaining TV aerials (unless we provide
a shared aerial).
- Putting up curtain rails and adapting doors to fit
carpets.
- Providing dustbins (unless provided by the council).
- Fitting extra locks, catches or other safety devices
and replacing lost keys.
- Clearing blocked sinks, basin, bath or shower waste pipes.
- Fixing toilet seats and bathroom accessories.
- Maintaining individual washing lines.
- Shelving.
How we prioritise repairs
The following examples are guidelines only and show the norml
maximum response time. Repairs staff will take account of factors
such as elderly and vulnerable
residents, or people with young children, serious medical
conditions and so on.
Priority 1: emergency repairs – 4 hours
Any problem that puts the health and safety or security of you,
or someone else, at immediate risk, or that has a negative effect
on the structure of the building, e.g:
- Total loss of electricity, water or gas supply (you should
decide whether this is a neighbourhood problem and, if so, contact
the appropriate organisation).
- Major plumbing leaks or bursts.
- Flooding caused by burst rivers and so on (including moving
residents and their belongings).
- Severe storm damage and major roof leaks, but you should be
aware that there may be little that we can do until the storm has
passed.
- Dangerous wiring – risk of electric shock.
- Security – make outside doors and ground-floor windows safe and
secure.
- Suspected or actual gas leak (ring TRANSCO direct on 0800 111
999).
- Blocked foul drains, soil pipe or the only toilet in the
property.
- No heating or hot water for elderly and vulnerable tenants
between 31st October and 1st May.
- Slipped roof tiles, faulty chimneys, masonry and so on where
these put people at risk.
- Make safe broken or jagged glass.
- Faulty smoke alarms and fire alarms going off.
- The emergency call alarm or system failing.
- Fire damage, although this will mainly be to secure the
property initially.
Priority 2: 24-hour response
Other emergencies where, for mainly practical reasons, a longer
response time is needed, e.g:
- No heating or hot water for other residents between 31st
October and 1st May, only if the next working day is more than 24
hours away.
- Toilet not flushing if the resident is frail and elderly (those
unable to flush using buckets of water).
- Shower repairs (disabled and vulnerable tenants only). In some
cases, repair and renewal may not be possible immediately.
- Loose or broken toilet pan where there is a serious leak or it
is potentially dangerous.
- Offensive graffiti.
- Priority 1 repairs, where daylight is essential to carry out
the work safely.
Priority 3: urgent – 7 days
Not an emergency, but likely to cause serious inconvenience,
e.g:
- No heating or hot water (between 1st May and 31st
October).
- Toilet not flushing.
- Loose or broken toilet pan or cistern.
- Leaking overflows (winter months only).
- Fire grate repairs if fire cannot be used (winter months
only).
- Loss of shared lighting.
- Door-entry repairs.
- TV aerial repairs to shared systems.
Priority 4: routine – 31 days
Most day-to-day repairs will fall into this category, e.g:
- Blocked gutters and rainwater pipes.
- Repairs to slate, tile and lead roofs.
- Leaks from flat roofs.
- Carpentry repairs.
- Garage-door repairs.
- Replacing cracked glass panes.
- Loss of heat to single radiator or night storage heater.
- Loss of electricity to single socket or lampholder.
- Loss of individual shared lights.
- Removing graffiti.
- Street lighting.
- Shower repairs (for non-disabled and non-vulnerable
tenants).
Priority 5: planned – 60 days
This will include most masonry work, carpentry renewals and jobs
where materials will take a long time to order.
- Outside rendering.
- Fencing, gate and path repairs.
- Internal plastering.
- Decorating.
- Ceramic tiled surrounds.
- Floor repairs.
- Damp-proofing, woodworm and dry-rot treatments.
- Work to prevent condensation.