It can be extremely frustrating and stressful if you have made a formal complaint to your landlord about a repair issue in your housing association rented property, and the repair has not been carried out. Your landlord has a duty to provide a safe and comfortable property, so any repair issues which emerge, and which have not been caused by your own behaviour and/or negligence, should be attended to within a reasonable period of time.

The first thing you should do when a repair issue comes to light is report it to the landlord. Assuming you have done this and assuming they have not responded, here is a list of six things you can now do to ensure either the repair gets done, or you are suitably compensated in the event that it is not done.

1. Contact the landlord again

In order to cover yourself and to demonstrate that you have done everything possible to allow the landlord to carry out the repair, you need to report the repair for a second time and make sure this is done directly to the landlord. A landlord can use the excuse that they never got the message if you just call an office and speak to someone connected to the landlord. Speak to the landlord directly, or better still, send the request in writing on a letter or email, directly addressed to the landlord.

2. Keep evidence

When making a complaint about a repair issue it is important that you keep evidence of what has happened so that you can refer back to it at a later date if you need to. And also to demonstrate when you have made certain actions and what has or hasn’t happened in the meantime. So take photos of the repair issue on the day you first reported it and periodically thereafter, to show how it is deteriorating. And keep a log of phone calls, keep copies of emails and letters to the landlord, and keep evidence of how the repair issue is damaging your health or your belongings. This will all be useful in providing you with a strong case against the landlord.

3. Establish a rough cost of repairs just in case

You should not attempt to carry out the repair yourself without the landlord’s permission, or without giving them chance to do it themselves. However, you should prepare for this eventuality, and particularly if the repair issue is becoming harmful, unsafe or uncomfortable to live with, so get a quote for the work and think about how you could do it yourself if you really need to. If the issue gets to this point and the landlord is not responding to your request or has refused to do the repair, you should arrange for the repair to be done, and the landlord could be forced to compensate you for the cost.

4. Check your tenancy agreement

It is not always the case that a tenancy agreement specifies what repair issues a landlord is responsible for, but with some contracts it might be. Check your tenancy agreement to see what it says before taking the matter further.

5. Wait

This might be difficult but you do need to give the landlord a reasonable period of time to carry out the repair, before you either do it yourself or proceed with legal action. A ‘reasonable period of time’ is a little open-ended, but essentially takes into context the cost and the complexity of the repair issue. So, if the problem is a case of subsidence in the back garden which is causing a structural wall to crack, this is a major issue that will be expensive and difficult to deal with. The landlord may be looking into how to fund the repair and how to find a suitable contractor to do it. That said, they should certainly be keeping you informed of this, but nevertheless, the problem won’t get fixed in a couple of days. However, a window that has been smashed and needs replacing, or a washing machine that is faulty, are simple jobs which are inexpensive and easy to get done, and you shouldn’t need to wait long. It can be frustrating, but you need to judge how long it should reasonably take for the landlord to complete the job, and allow them a chance to do it.

6. Contact Legal HD

If you feel like you have left a reasonable period of time for the landlord to act, and they haven’t, or if they have responded to say they won’t carry out the repair, then you should contact Legal HD, because living in a housing association rented property, you are eligible to make a housing disrepair claim. We are the housing disrepair claim specialists and can advise on the merits of your case based on the evidence you can provide, the nature of the repair issue and what your tenancy agreement stipulates. We will proceed on a no-win-no-fee basis if we think you have grounds to make a housing disrepair claim.

Contact Legal HD today and we can get your repair issue resolved and also get you suitably compensated for your ordeal.