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Emergency repairs
During your tenancy, your landlord or agent should provide you with contact details including a 24-hour contact for emergencies.
Increasingly managing repairs and maintenance is done online and communicating via email is a good way to keep track of progress. Whilst it is important to get repairs completed quickly, you should also be realistic about timescales. Some repairs may not be immediate, especially if replacement parts have to be ordered, but having a contractor attend within 24 hours to diagnose the problem is not an unreasonable expectation.
Most landlords and agents will hold a set of keys in order gain access to the property for repairs (it’s also useful if you lose your keys) but you should expect them to always confirm the access with you in advance before attending and give you the option to attend should you wish. If the contractor is attending alone, make sure that they are properly vetted and are insured to be able to collect keys and have unsupervised access
Property Managers are employed as agents for the landlord and, depending on the contract that they have with a landlord, they may be limited in what they can arrange without explicit consent from the owner. Although employed by the landlord they still have a duty of care to you as the tenant and to ensure that you are kept free from any danger. Most property managers will hold some money on account to cover the cost of emergency repairs but regular maintenance will need confirmation to proceed.
Emergency repairs are generally specific to power and water and most contractors that attend to these sort of problems (power failures, major leaks and flooding) will do the minimum overnight to stem the problem and then re-attend the next day when they will cause less disruption to other residents, be working in daylight and on normal rates.
If you have an emergency you should also take what reasonable precautions you can to prevent any damage, including switching off electric or water supplies or trying to contact your neighbour if there is a leak coming from their property.
Unless specifically agreed with the landlord and agent you should not try to undertake any repair works yourself, even if you are qualified to do so. Some works may potentially cause you harm, cause additional damage to the property or possibly invalidate the landlord’s insurance. If this happens the landlord could reasonably look to you to cover the cost of the damage if they did not give consent for work to be undertaken.
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Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
All landlords who let property with gas appliances are subject to this act. This not only includes gas fires and boilers but other appliances such as cookers, hobs and portable heaters.
What must I do to comply? If your property contains gas appliances, they must be serviced on an annual basis and any remedial work undertaken to bring the appliances up to standard. In addition, the engineer must provide a record of the inspection, part of which must be supplied to the tenant(s). Anyone contracted by a landlord to install, repair or service gas appliances must be GAS SAFE registered.
Who should organise the inspection/service?
For Managed Properties, Cooksleys Letting Agents , as your agent, are happy to arrange for the initial service and the annual renewals. Furthermore, we will obtain the certificate and ensure that the tenant(s) has their copy. If you wish to use a particular contractor or arrange your own check, take care to select a GAS SAFE registered engineer and ask for the certificate. For Tenant Find and Rent Collection properties, then you will need to provide us with the necessary inspection documentation prior to a tenancy commencing ensure a valid Safety record is in place thereafter for the duration of the tenancy.
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Electrical Safety Certificate
An electrical safety certificate ensures that appliances are safe to use; the electrical installation must be completely safe.
Unlike the Gas Safety Regulations, in England there is no mandatory requirement for the installation to undergo any safety testing unless the property is an HMO, but there is a legal requirement for any property to be inspected by a competent person prior to being offered for rent for the first time – keep a record of this Inspection Report.
Note, in Scotland, an EICR or Electrical Installation and Condition Report plus Portable Appliance Test is a legal requirement.
In the event that a person is hurt, or worse, a Landlord may face expensive litigation if he cannot show that he was duly diligent with the electric system and therefore having a full Electric Inspection Certificate, which lasts for up to 5 years, throughout the Tenancy would protect the Landlord from this situation.
There is a legal requirement for a visual inspection to be carried out at the turn of every tenancy or annually, whichever happens first. This can be done by the Landlord but any remedial work must be carried out by a competent person.
Although there is no requirement for equipment to be checked, it’s recommended for every Landlord to check all electrical appliances before the start of a tenancy and regularly thereafter. If the property is an HMO, all appliances that are not hard wired in must have a Portable Appliance Test annually or at the turn of each Tenancy, whichever happens first.
This regulation requires that any plug, socket or adapter supplied for intended domestic use complies with the appropriate current standard, and specifically that:
The live and neutral pins on plugs are part insulated so as to prevent shocks when removing plugs from sockets and all plugs are pre-wired.
In all our rental properties we insist on a yearly PAT Test and a 5 year Hard wire Report EICR by an Independent Tester and then if needed Instruct a separate Electrician to carry out any required works .
You cannot be to safe !!
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Carbon Monoxide Detectors
Changes were made to some of the building regulations in October 2010, including those relating to carbon monoxide detectors driven by health and safety concerns. One of the most significant changes now requires that a carbon monoxide detector be fitted in any rooms that have either a replacement or new fixed solid fuel-burning appliance installed. A gas safe engineer will be able to advise you on the correct location and position for detectors.
Smoke Alarms & The Building Regulations 1991:
These regulations require that all properties built since June 1992 must be fitted with mains-operated, interlinked smoke detectors/alarms on each floor. Properties built before that date do not have such a statutory requirement, We recommend that the Landlord should consider the installation of mains-operated, interlinked smoke detectors/alarms in his property. New regulations come into force in October 2015 where all rental properties are required to have working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors installed in all residential properties.
Are there any risks?
When letting residential accommodation, it must be accepted that a speculative venture is being undertaken and tenants do not always adopt the same standards of care and attention that an owner/occupier would. In addition, there is always a risk that they may default in payment of rent. The service that we offer has been created to minimise such risks, although it must be realised that they still exist. However, set against these risks is the fact that you will be retaining your capital investment and, if it is your home, you will be preserving it until such time as you may wish to return. We do recommend taking out legal and rent protection insurance and will be pleased to discuss this with you.
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