1  About Ability Housing Association

2  Living in your Ability home

3  Your repairs service

a. How to report a repair.

b. Emergencies:

• Gas leaks

c. Gas safety

d. Our response times:

• Emergency repairs
• Urgent repairs
• Routine repairs
• Completion targets
• Your responsibilities
• Inspecting repairs
  • Before work starts
  • After works have been completed

e. Planned maintenance and adaptations:

• Aids and adaptations
• Doing improvements yourself

f. Code of conduct

4  Money matters

5  Your support services

6  Useful stuff

We both have responsibilities for looking after your home. Ability has a legal duty to keep your home in good repair but we also expect that you will take reasonable care of the property.

We make sure that the most urgent repairs are carried out more quickly than other more minor repairs that can wait without causing further damage or inconvenience.We do this by working with carefully selected contractors to ensure that works are carried out properly, within appropriate response times, and provide value for money.

a. How to report a repair

If you need a repair to be carried out, you can tell us:

• By telephoning or calling into your local office
• By talking to your Housing SupportWorker
• In writing, to your local office

When reporting repairs, please:

• Give your name, full address and telephone number
• Give us information about what is wrong and what part of the property is affected
• Give us information on how and when it happened
• Let us know when you will be available to provide access to your home for our contractor or for our staff to inspect.

Please make sure you tell us straight away if you think there is a problem that affects your safety or security.

b. Emergencies

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Emergency repairs should be immediately reported to your local office during normal office hours.

For emergency repairs that happen out of normal office hours, you should telephone the ‘out of hours’ number at the front of your tenant handbook, or, if you have one installed, use the alarm system.

You should do whatever you can to minimise further damage or reduce danger. For example:

• Turn off stopcocks for plumbing emergencies
• Use lamps if your lights have failed
• Keep people away from areas of broken glass or tripping hazards until someone can arrive to deal with the repair properly.

In some circumstances, it will only be possible for us to make safe the damage and we will return at a later date to complete the full repair.

For example:

• Boarding a window and returning later to complete the re-glazing
• Taking down a dangerous wall or fence and returning later to put a new one back.

Gas leaks

If you think you can smell gas:

• Put out cigarettes immediately and do not use matches, lighters or any naked flames
• Stop using any electrical equipment
• Do not turn any light switches or wall sockets on or off
• Check if a pilot light has blown out or if a gas tap or cooker has been left on
• Turn off the gas at the meter.

Call Transco on 0800 111 999

c. Gas safety

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To ensure your safety and to meet our legal obligations,we must service every Ability-owned gas appliance each year.We must do this even if the appliance seems to be working properly. The contractor who visits to carry out the service and safety check will carry out a number of tests on the gas appliances and will give you a copy of the Gas Safety Check Record so that you know all is well. The tests are designed to make sure that you are not at risk from carbon monoxide poisoning. The early symptoms of poisoning include tiredness, drowsiness, headache, pains in the chest and stomach pains.

Remember, you must NEVER use a gas appliance if you think it isn't working properly. Signs of a faulty appliance to look out for include yellow or orange flames, soot or stains around the appliance, and pilot lights that frequently blow out.

Remember:

• NEVER cover a gas appliance or block any air vents
• NEVER block or cover outside flues.

d. Our response times

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Listed below are some examples of the different types of repairs carried out by us and details of how quickly we will carry them out.

Emergency repairs are those that cause an immediate risk to safety, security, health or the building and should be completed within 24 hours.

Examples of emergenciy repairs are:

• A burst pipe that you cannot stop by turning off the stopcock
• Total failure of your electricity supply
• A blocked drain or toilet if you only have one in your home
• Major structural damage.

Urgent repairs are those which are likely to cause damage or difficulties if not attended to fairly quickly and should be completed within one week.

Examples of urgent repairs are:

• Leaking radiators
• Entry phone system not working
• Leaking roof
• Toilet not flushing.

Routine repairs are less serious and can wait without causing major damage or inconvenience and should be completed within 28 days.

Examples of routine repairs are:

• Dripping gutters
• Repairs to internal doors
• Repairs to cupboards
• Plaster repairs.

These targets are very important to us and our local teams regularly monitor our performance against them. Each year you will receive a report showing our performance.

If we don't do the repair work within our target times at the second time of asking, you may be entitled to compensation. More information can be found in the Complaints Procedure.You can obtain a copy from your local or area office.

Your responsibilities

Ability has legal obligations to keep your home in good repair but you need to take reasonable care of it too and are responsible for some works inside your home. These include such things as:

• Decorating and filling small gaps or cracks
• Repairing or replacing electric plugs, light bulbs and fuses
• Clearing blocked sink, bath, basin or shower waste pipes
• Re-lighting boilers, setting heating controls and bleeding radiators
• Replacing broken glass
• Maintaining washing lines and rotary dryers
• Fitting extra locks or safety catches, replacing lost keys and changing locks.

If you receive a support service from Ability, your Housing SupportWorker can assist you to carry out or to arrange these minor repairs.

Naturally, you are also responsible for any repairs needed through damage, misuse or carelessness by you, your family or your visitors.

Inspecting repairs

Before works start

For some sorts of repairs we will need to visit you to see exactly what work is needed before we can order it. Typical examples of the repairs for which we would need to visit are:

• Dampness
• Requests for new kitchen units or bathroom fittings
• Requests for new windows.

If a visit is needed, we will arrange to carry this out within a few days of your request. If our visit indicates that a big, expensive or complicated repair might be needed, there may be a delay while a specialist surveyor is asked to inspect the problem and report to us.

After works have been completed

In many cases,we carry out an inspection to make sure the work has been done to the correct standard before we pay the contractor. The work we inspect is often selected at random although we will always visit where a complaint has been made about quality.

e. Planned maintenance and adaptations

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As well as carrying out repairs that residents ask us to do,we also complete a wide range of larger projects. These include cyclical works such as external decoration, cleaning gutters and general routine maintenance to keep the properties in good condition and more major improvements such as renewing kitchens, bathrooms, windows and heating systems.

If you ask for a repair that is due to be included in one of these larger projects, then we may ask you to wait until that work starts. By doing so,we can make sure that the work is carried out to an agreed standard and style and that we achieve better value for money, which is in everyone's interest!

Aids and adaptations

If someone in your household is elderly, disabled or has a long-term illness, we may be able to help you by improving or adapting your home. This could be a simple adaptation like grab rails in the bathroom or a more major work such as fitting a stairlift or a shower.

If you think an improvement to your home could help someone in your household to be more independent, ask your Housing Officer or Housing SupportWorker for more details.

We usually need to get an independent assessment by a qualified occupational therapist and this can take some time to arrange.

Doing improvements yourself

You can often make improvements or alterations to your home and, although you will need our permission first,we won't refuse permission without a good reason. To get our permission, you should write to your Area Manager describing what you want to do and a member of staff will contact you with more details.

Depending on the work you want to do, you may also need Building Regulation Approval or Planning Consent. Carrying out alterations or improvements without permission could result in you being charged for the cost of us returning the property into its original condition, so it is always best to ask before you start any work. For certain improvements, you may also qualify for compensation if you move home after doing the work. More details can be found in the policy on Compensation for Improvements.

f. Code of conduct

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We expect those who work for us to behave properly whilst they are in your home and this means they should:

• Contact you to arrange a convenient time to carry out the repair
• Introduce themselves to you, show proof of their identity, and explain what they will be doing
• Carry out the works between 8.00am and 5.00pm Monday to Friday except in cases of emergency
• Not play radios or smoke in your home
• Treat you politely at all times
• Protect your belongings from damage while they are carrying out their work
• Keep your home secure while working there
• Work safely
• Leave you with all essential services (eg. water, electricity, gas, etc.. working at the end of each day even if they have not finished their work
• Clean up any mess they make and take away all rubbish and materials at the end of each day.

Please let us know if you feel the person carrying out your repair has not met these standards of behaviour or workmanship.