Before Your Repair

When you report a repair we may advise you that you need to move furniture, carpets or other items.  This is to enable us to undertake work safely without damaging your property.

It greatly assists us if you can do this but if you or your family feel that you are unable to move the items for any reason please contact us prior to the repair appointment on 01246 217670 or email contactus@rykneldhomes.org.uk.  We will consider individual circumstances and provide help and support where possible.

It is important that you let us know as soon as possible if an appointment made for a member of our staff to visit you is no longer convenient.  You can let us know by completing our online form.

Missed appointments waste time and resources. It is also important that you allow us access to your home to carry out safety checks such as gas or solid fuel servicing as well as emergency or routine repairs.

If we visit your home to carry out a repair and no one is available, we will leave a card asking you to ring us within seven days to rearrange. If we do not hear from you, the repair will be cancelled. Once a repair has been cancelled you will need to contact us and arrange a new appointment.

There are certain responsibilities when it comes to keeping your home in a reasonable state of repair. There are things you have responsibility for and Rykneld Homes has responsibility for in terms of the repairs to your home.

Your responsibilities include:

• When you report a repair, ensure you keep the agreed appointment/arrangements to allow us access to carry out the work
• Ask to see the identification of any of our workmen or contractors before they enter your home
• Try to remove any furniture or floor coverings around the repair to allow it to be completed safely and without causing damage to your belongings
• The costs of putting right any damage to your home that has not been caused by fair wear and tear
• Keeping dogs away from the work area during repairs, to prevent any accidents or injury to your pet
• Keeping internal decorations in good order
• General housekeeping
• The maintenance and repair of fencing and hedging
• WC seats
• Light bulbs, plugs and fuses
• Replacement of rewireable fuses in the main fuse box
• Sweeping flues used by solid fuel appliances (we sweep them once a year as part of the annual service but you should have them swept more frequently)
• Fire parts required due to misuse of the appliance
• The replacement of door locks and keys, where keys are missing or locks deliberately damaged
• Any items fitted by a previous customer and accepted by yourself on taking over the tenancy
• Resetting the circuit breakers on the consumer unit
• Removing blockages from sink and basin
• Repressurising your combi boiler
• Relighting the pilot light
• Renewing batteries to heating controls, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors
• Setting heating controls, including timed programmes
• Any alterations or improvements which you have made to the property except for:

      - A central heating boiler or central heating installation, which has been approved by Rykneld Homes and is more than 12        months old and no longer guaranteed by the manufacturer

      - A vehicle hardstanding area for which you are making weekly payments to Rykneld Homes for its upkeep.

For more information about repair responsibilities please get in touch.

Contact Us

Our responsibilities include:

The outside of your home including walls, chimney, roof, external doors and windows and surface and foul water drainage, gates or clothes posts provided by us, external paths and steps providing access to front and rear entrance doors or council-built outbuildings and communal areas of flats.

The inside of your home including the installations for the supply of water, gas and electricity, the heating installation and finishings, components and fixtures and fittings we have fitted.

Exceptions

• When a property is sold freehold
• When a Right to Buy application is submitted
• We will not repair any property belonging to the customer
• Any items where the customer has the repairing obligation
• Fencing (except in special circumstances).

Sometimes we have to carry out repairs to a property where damage has been caused - either deliberately or through neglect - by a customer, their family, visitors or lodgers.

Under the Tenancy Agreement, we are entitled to charge the customer for the cost of the repair.

Typical examples include:

• Putting right damage to a solid fuel heating appliance caused by neglect or misuse
• Reinstating roof tiling damaged by your TV aerial contractors
• Carrying out repairs and making good damage resulting from a burst where you have neglected to have the plumbing installation drained down before leaving the property unoccupied
• Clearing the dwelling, its outbuildings or garden of belongings, waste or rubbish when you terminate your tenancy
• Carrying out temporary works to make safe where alterations you have carried out to the property have rendered it unsafe
• Reinstatement where you have carried out improvements but failed to comply with conditions imposed by Rykneld Homes when granting approval (e.g. at termination of tenancy you have removed fixtures which should have been left or left fixtures which should have been removed)
• Clearing an overgrown garden
• Cleaning or decorating the interior of the dwelling to restore it to a state which is acceptable to Rykneld Homes
• Broken internal glazing or broken external glazing which has not been broken as a result of criminal or negligent acts of third parties, for which you can provide a police incident number
• Wall and ceiling finishes we need to reinstate because you have applied additional finishes, such as plaster finished to look rustic in appearance, artex or similar material, polystyrene tiles or timber/plywood boarding.

Current and Former Tenants - Rechargeable Repairs could apply to current tenants with day to day repairs or to former tenants where the work is necessary to re-let an empty property due to their actions.

Pay for Replacements - You can pay for repairs or replacements yourself but they must be of a standard acceptable to us.

Out of Hours Repairs - Some tenants have been charged when staff have attended out of hours to carry out a repair, which was the tenant's responsibility.

All our staff carry identification badges - please ask any caller to your home to show their proof of identity

We want you to feel safe and secure in your home. For your own personal safety, it is important that you ask any caller to show you their proof of identity (all our staff and contractors carry an ID card).

All of our staff are more than happy to show you their identification card before entering your home

We provide our contractors with signs to display inside their vans - if you have any concerns with the identity of one of our contractors - please call our Customer Advice & Support Team on 01246 217670.

If you are unsure who the caller is there are some simple steps you can take:

1. Check to see if you know the caller from the window.

2. Keep your door on the chain and look to see who is calling before opening it.

3. Ask to see the caller's identification. They should show it to you through the crack in the door, or through the letter box. You can also check that the caller is genuine by calling us on 01246 217670.

4. You can ask the caller to wait outside whilst you verify their identity by calling us.

5. If the visitor insists they need access immediately, or before you carry out the necessary checks immediately call 999.

If in doubt - keep them out.

If you have any doubts that a caller to your home is from Rykneld Homes or working on our behalf, you can call us on 01246 217670 and we can verify their identity.