Homes are complicated with thousands of components that can and do fail. While some faults are just inconvenient others can be life-threatening. Many issues are quick and simple to put right; others can be challenging, expensive and time consuming to deal with.
With over 10,700 houses and flats to take care of, we have our work cut-out to keep everyone’s home in a good, safe and comfortable condition. But it’s one of our biggest priorities and also top of the list for customers too.
Understanding how we repair and maintain your home can help you to get the best out of our repairs service.
Our Help Hub has answers to frequently asked questions about repairs, including how to fix common boiler issues.
How we prioritise your repair
Any fault in your home can be annoying so we know it’s important to fix things as quickly as we can. But we also need to make sure that we deal with the most serious issues, especially those that can be dangerous, first. Alongside this we need to take extra care of customers who may be particularly vulnerable. And there are some things that we expect you to deal with yourself as a tenant.
To help us make sure that we are prioritising the most urgent jobs and the most vulnerable people, we categorise faults, repairs and maintenance into five groups. Click on the tabs below to find out more about each category of repair.
There are some faults in your home that you need to take care of yourself.
Examples of things in this category include:
- replacing toilet seats, light bulbs or shower heads
- fixing small plaster cracks
- maintaining boundary fences (where you are responsible as the customer - which isn't always the case).
View or download a full list of all the faults that you are responsible for dealing with yourself.
You can also get lots of help and advice, including simple 'how-to' video guides, about lots of minor DIY repairs on our Help Hub.
Other things to know about repair times
- We can deal with issues more quickly than normal if someone in the household is vulnerable so it’s important to tell us if you or other family members have additional needs – for example, the very young or old and people with serious or long-term health conditions.
- Repairs may take longer than expected if parts or materials are unavailable. We will do everything we can to complete the work as quickly as possible but supply chain problems are often outside our control.
- Sometimes when we investigate a fault we may discover that you really need a full replacement or upgrade. This would typically be for things like heating systems, kitchens, bathrooms, windows and roofs. When this is the case we will fix the immediate problem and make things safe, but then plan to carry out the replacement in the future. The work then goes into our planned works programme - and means you can expect to wait up to a year for the upgrade to happen. Click here to find out more about planned works and how we invest in keeping homes up-to-date and modern. If the fault comes back or things get worse while you are waiting for an upgrade, please do let us know.
Help us to help you
There are some simple things you can do to help us to get your repairs dealt with more quickly.
- Make sure we have your up-to-date contact details so that we can get in touch to make arrangements when we need to.
- Be at home when we’ve made an appointment to carry out repairs or tell us you’re going to be out as soon as possible if it’s unavoidable so that we can rearrange. That saves us time that we can use to help the next customer.
- Use MyAccount rather than calling – it’s usually quicker.
- If you do miss an appointment for a repair and we can’t get into your home to do the work, the job will be cancelled. If you still need help you must contact us to rearrange or we won’t come back and the problem won’t be dealt with.
- Be aware that we can’t specify an appointment time for fast repairs or priority repairs so you will need to be prepared to be at home all day. However, for other, less urgent repairs you can chose a morning, afternoon, anytime or ‘avoiding school runs’ slot.
How to get in touch
Our customer contact team are your first port of call when you have a fault in your home that we need to fix. There are many ways to get in touch with them:
- Log in to MyAccount
- Fill out our customer enquiries form.
- Use the live chat on our homepage in the pop-up box in the bottom right corner when we’re online.
- Call 0300 456 2531. Our phones are open from 8:30am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and 8:30am to 4:30pm on Fridays. If we’re busy, you can use the call-back option and you won’t lose your place in the queue. If you hang up and call again you will go to the back of the queue once more.
- Outside our normal opening hours (eg at weekends) we only offer an emergency call-out service. This service will only treat hazardous problems to make your home safe again and is not a full repairs service.
Other important information
We have a standard process that we follow when you report a repair. The process is the same, but the priority level and speed of response will depend on the type of fault and other factors such as any risks of harm or the vulnerability of people in your household.
- We’ll assign a member of the repairs team to your request.
- We’ll send you a text message to confirm your appointment.
- We’ll send you a reminder message each week in the run-up to your appointment.
- We'll send a final reminder to you 48 hours before the appointment.
- We'll let you know when a member of the team is on their way to you.
- Our team will visit and carry out the repair.
- Wherever possible we will fix the problem on our first visit but sometimes we may need to make a follow-on appointment (for example where we need to order spare parts to finish the job). If this happens we will always leave your property in a safe condition and aim to complete the work as soon as possible.
- If we find, when carrying out a repair, that a full replacement is due, we will schedule this into our planned works programme.
