05 · Repairs

Reporting, access, and the repair record

AThe duty runs from the moment the landlord knows

Repair logOne line per report

REPAIR LOG · LINE DATE TIME FROM BY IN THEIR OWN WORDS CATEGORY RISK SERVICE ROUTINE

A landlord's repairing duty under the 2016 Act attaches to the structure and exterior and to the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, heating and hot water. The fitness regulations sit over the top of that and are judged for the whole of the contract.

For most defects inside the dwelling the duty is triggered by notice: the clock starts when the landlord or the agent is told, which is the single reason a report is written down the moment it is taken.

BWhat a report has to capture before it is any use

  1. Where, exactly

    Room, and the position in the room. A leak under the sink and a leak behind the sink are different jobs and different trades.

  2. Since when

    When it was first noticed, and whether it is getting worse. A stain that has been there since the spring is a different problem from one that appeared on Tuesday.

  3. What it stops working

    Whether the dwelling still has heat, hot water, a working cooker, a lockable front door, a usable lavatory. These decide the category, not the cost.

  4. Access, and who is in

    When the contract-holder can be at home, whether there is a pet, whether a key may be used in their absence.

CTwenty-four hours, in writing, at a reasonable time

NOTICE SERVED, AND THE EARLIEST VISIT 00 08 18 08 18 24 FIRST DAY NEXT DAY 24 HOURS served earliest
Drawn for one example only. The notice period runs from service, and the hours counted as reasonable are a matter for the contract and the dwelling.

A contract-holder must allow access for work the landlord is entitled to carry out, and the landlord must give at least twenty-four hours' written notice and come at a reasonable time of day. Those are terms of the contract itself, not a courtesy.

A dwelling that is let is the contract-holder's home. Holding a key is not permission to be in it.

Notice of access, with the date servedThe notice names the date, the window of time, the reason and who will attend. A contractor who turns up outside the window attends a refused visit and the log records it as refused, not as attended. Where access is refused repeatedly, the refusals are recorded individually: three dated lines are evidence, and one line saying the contract-holder is difficult is not.

DWhat the record has to carry when the job is closed

A closed line is not a line that stopped being mentioned. It carries the date the work was done, who did it, what they found, what they replaced, and the date the contract-holder confirmed the dwelling was back in use.

Where the work touches gas, electricity or an alarm, the certificate or test result issued at the same visit goes onto the file and supersedes the one before it.

Nothing on this page sets a time by which work will be done: that is a matter for the contract between a landlord and whoever carries out the work. What a record can promise is that the date of the report, the date of the notice and the date of the visit are all on the file. The statutory items · Salt, oil and the inspection calendar · Back to what is held here