Leaseholders' handbook - repairs and maintenance

These charges are for day-to-day shared repairs such as paving, windows, shared lighting, entry-phone systems, roofing, lifts and drainage gutters.

We will send you a list of the shared repairs every six months, allowing you to see all the repairs we have carried out to your building or estate.
 
We will also invite you to a repairs forum meeting to discuss any problems you may have with repairs.

We have the right to enter your home to check what repairs are needed and carry them out if we are responsible for them. We will give you notice in writing unless there is an emergency. We will always try our best to contact you first.

Generally, you are responsible for repairs inside your home and for items only you use, such as:

• Replacing broken glass
• decorating inside your home
• doors, woodwork and floors inside your home
• ceilings, plaster and walls inside your home
• kitchen fittings
• all pipework, taps and valves inside your home
• baths, sinks, washbasins, showers, toilets and lagging your pipes
• heating and hot-water systems
• replacing locks to your home
• fences and gates that are yours.

Our responsibilities

We are responsible for repairing and maintaining the structure, outside and shared parts of the building you live in, the cost of which is recovered through your service charges.

We will repair and maintain:

• Foundations
• outside walls
• roofs, outside doors and window frames
• chimney stacks
• structural walls
• outside decoration and decoration inside shared areas
• shared boundary walls and fences
• lifts and entry phones
• shared wiring and lighting
• shared rubbish chutes.

Reporting a repair

If you need a repair or need maintenance to be carried out to a shared area, you should report it immediately to the repairs contact centre on 020 8937 2750 or if you live in South Kilburn, please call 020 8937 2666.

You can alternatively report a repair online.

Please be ready to give full details of the repair, where it is, and how we can get access to carry out the repair.

What should I do if I have an emergency outside normal working hours?

If you need an emergency repair outside normal working hours and it presents a risk to health and safety or could badly damage your property or the building, you should contact the out-of-hours emergency service on 020 8937 1234.

An example of an emergency would be a major roof leak, a faulty lift or faulty door-entry system. We will charge you your share of the cost of repair.

Anyone working for us should carry identification. Always ask to see identification before letting someone into your home.

Leaks

Residents often contact the leasehold management team to complain about leaks damaging their home from another property. The most common origin of these leaks is the overflow pipe. To reduce the damage and disruption that leaks cause, the leasehold management team asks all leaseholders to follow these few simple guidelines.

• Make regular checks to all pipework and appliances that use water (such as washing machines) to make sure there are no leaks
• give the leasehold management team an emergency contact number so we can contact you immediately if there is a leak
• make sure that you repair any leak from your property quickly and then tell the leasehold management team so they can repair the damage caused by the leak
• if the leak is not sorted out in the given time, our contractors will carry out the work. The charge for the work will be included in your service-charge bill, together with the management fee.