Our Homes
Repairs to your home
As your landlord, we are responsible for keeping the basic structure and the outside of your home in good repair, as well as any communal areas in and around blocks of flats. As our tenant, you are responsible for maintaining the inside of the property, including re-decorating as necessary, and carrying out any minor repairs – although we may be able to help you with these as well if you are elderly and/or have serious disabilities or health problems.
Our Board sets a target (response) time for carrying out each type of repair and we aim to keep to these as closely as we can. Charlton Triangle’s approved contractors are carefully selected by a panel of staff and tenants and are monitored by our surveyors to make sure that repairs are carried out to a high standard.
What do i do if something needs repairing?
If you need to have a repair carried out to your home, please follow the procedure set out below:
- First, please check the list of repairs on pages 10-12 to see whose responsibility it is – ours or yours. Please remember that we have no obligation to repair anything that has been damaged or misused by you or your family or visitors, or anything that does not belong to us. If we have to carry out such a repair for health and safety reasons, please be aware that we shall have to re-charge you for the cost.
- f you think the repair is our responsibility, please ring the Repairs Hotline on 0800 068 7707. They will confirm whether or not we can do the repair and will arrange an appointment for a contractor to visit you within the agreed response time for that type of repair. The response times for the different types of repair (emergency, urgent and routine) are listed below. Sometimes it may be necessary for one of our surveyors to visit you to inspect the problem first and if so the Customer Services Officer will make you an appointment.
- If it is outside office opening hours, including at weekends or on a public holiday, please check that the repair is a Priority 1 (emergency) repair. If you are sure it is, then please ring 0800 068 7707. This is the Out of Hours Hotline, which will arrange for a contractor to visit your home within 24 hours. The contractor will do their best to complete the work, but may have to simply make things safe or do a temporary repair until the usual contractor can come on the next working day. If the repair is not an emergency, please wait until our office is open and report it in the normal way.
Please be aware that if you call out the emergency repairs contractor for a repair which is not Priority 1, you will be charged for the cost of the work.
What if i can’t carry out the repair myself?
If you are elderly and/or have serious disabilities or health problems and feel that you cannot get the repair done even though it is your responsibility, please ring the Repairs Hotline and explain your situation. The Customer Services Officer will tell you whether or not we can help. There are a number of things that we take into account apart from your age and health, such as the weather (for example, if it is very cold we will try to get your heating mended more quickly), any nuisance or harassment you are suffering where this is linked to the condition of your property, and a number of other factors. Please bear in mind, however, that our repairs budget is necessarily limited and some less urgent repairs may have to be delayed if we are overspent in the current year.
What happens once CTH has agreed to do a repair?
When we have agreed to carry out a repair to your home, our contractor will write to confirm the details of the repair. You wil also be asked to sign a satisfaction slip once the repair has been completed. If you are not happy with what has been done, please ring us as soon as possible. We may need to visit to see the work for ourselves before taking further action.
We are also using new technology to improve our service. If you have a mobile phone we can send you text reminders about repair appointments, and we will use text message to see if you are satisfied with the job after it has been completed.
Gas servicing: as your landlord, we must by law make sure that your gas boiler is serviced every year without fail. This is extremely important for you and your family: a faulty boiler can be very dangerous. Our contractor will contact you at about the same time every year to arrange a visit to your home. During the visit, the engineer will check that your heating system is working properly and carry out any repairs needed, as well as servicing the boiler and checking your smoke detectors. Please help us to help you by giving our engineer access at the arranged time. If you do not co-operate with us on this, we may have to ultimately force entry to your home and cap off the gas supply until such time as you give us access to carry out the service.
If you let the contractor in on first visit you will be automatically entered into a free prize draw.
What about the outside of my home?
Apart from “day-to-day” repairs, we will aim to decorate the outside of your property (and any communal internal areas) and carry out “cyclical” maintenance (such as renewing guttering or drainpipes) every 5 years or so. You will receive plenty of warning about this and may be asked about colour schemes and so on, if this applies.
Please note that if you have a garden which is part of your tenancy, this will be your responsibility to maintain. If you find this difficult because of your age or physical disability and have no friends or family that you can call on to help, please contact us. We may be able to arrange for some assistance.
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CTH is proud of its repair service and works hard to make sure it keeps improving. From time to time, we will ask for your views on the way things are going and whether you have any suggestions for making the service better. You will also receive annual reports from us on our repairs performance: how much we are spending, how we are meeting our targets and so on.
There are some repairs that the Government requires us to do within a certain time period. In the unlikely event that we fail to do this, you have the legal remedy of right to repair. Please ask for a leaflet about this at our office – staff will be able to download information from the internet for you.
