Out-of-hours repairs cover for landlords: set it up now

Good cover at night and at weekends rests on four things you set up before you need them. They are a number your tenants can ring, someone to answer it, a trade for each kind of job, and a test that shows it all works. The app helps with each one, but it can’t answer the phone for you.

Why an email isn’t enough

When a tenant reports a danger such as a smell of gas, the app emails you at once from urgent@selfmanaged.co.uk. For a report made on your tenant’s page, it emails you again after 15 and 45 minutes until it’s opened. An email to your Selfmanaged address that names a danger is emailed to you once.

It’s an email, not a call. Selfmanaged doesn’t watch your properties and can’t make sure anyone sees it, and there’s a daily limit on these emails: beyond it, the report is in your app but not emailed. At night the email may not wake you. The surest way to be woken is a phone call, which is why the app suggests At any time below.

A number your tenants can ring

Your tenants need a number to ring out of hours, and a new tenant page can’t be sent until you give one. You give it under Account › Repairs and tenants’ settings › Repairs settings, under Out of hours.

• Ring me on a number gives your tenants your own number.
• Ring someone covering for me gives them another person’s name and number. After the day you give under Until, your tenants are shown your own number instead.
• When it may be used is When I’m not usually available or At any time. With At any time, your tenants are asked to ring that number in an emergency, whatever the hour.

After an emergency, your tenant’s page tells them when it was emailed to you, and that you may not see it straight away. It also shows them the number you’ve chosen for them to ring. What your tenants are told, at the foot of Repairs settings, shows those words with your answers in them.

Choose a number that is answered at night, on a phone that isn’t silenced then. If you share the load with someone, agree who has the phone each night.

Someone covering when you’re away

Before a holiday, ask someone you trust to cover, and give their name and number under Ring someone covering for me, with Until set to the day you’re back.

Tell them what they may decide without you: which trades to ring, how much they may agree to spend, and how to reach you. Give them the address of each home, and how a trade can get in once your tenant knows they’re coming. Keep door and key-safe codes out of writing, and give them by phone.

The house guide has an item for this, Who covers when you’re away. Once you publish the guide, your tenants see it on their page.

A trade for each kind of job, and a second name

Under Account › Trades, you choose who gets Plumbing, Heating and gas, Electrics and Anything else. Heating and gas repairs go only to a trade with a Gas Safe number.

It helps to have a second name for each of those, written down where you can find it at night. Ask each trade whether they come out at night or at weekends, and what that costs. If your usual trade can’t take a repair, the repair says so. It then offers to send it to another of your trades, or to add a new one and send it in the same step.

Decide what a trade may spend without asking you before the night it matters. Under Spending, choose an amount or Nothing: they ring me first. The amount includes VAT and any call-out charge, and over it the trade rings you first.

On Free, each repair waits for you to tap Send, emergencies included. So the number your tenants ring needs to reach someone who can tap Send, or ring a trade.

Test it before you need it

1. In Repairs settings, tap Send Test Emergency, then Send Test Emergency again to confirm.
2. When the email marked TEST reaches your phone, tap It Arrived. If it doesn’t come, tap It Didn’t Arrive, look in your junk and other folders, and try again.

You can send up to three a day. It helps to try it once in the evening, with your phone set as it is at night.

To see exactly what a trade gets, tap Send Test Repair under Account › Trades. It goes to your own email. Then ring each trade on your list, to check the number still works and they still take this kind of work.

Tell your tenants

Once your number is saved, send each tenant their tenant page. At the top of every tenant page, under Is anyone in danger now?, these numbers show, even before your tenant signs in.

The house guide’s Who to call, and when section is where you write what your tenant should do out of hours. Its standing instructions cover a burst pipe or leak, no heating, no hot water and a power cut, among others. An instruction that names a trade, a phone number or an amount is shown only when the app’s safety rules allow it. For a burst pipe or leak, that’s only in an emergency. For no heating, no hot water or a power cut, it’s also when the app sorts the report as urgent.

What the law says

For your tenant’s own home, you aren’t liable for disrepair until you have notice of it. Whether a text, an email or a phone call counts as that notice hasn’t been checked for the app. The app records how you were told and draws no conclusion. The work is then due within a reasonable time, which depends on the circumstances: the court decides.

Your tenant must allow access for repairs you are entitled to do. GOV.UK recommends at least 24 hours’ written notice at reasonable hours, possibly shorter in an emergency.

For a particular tenancy, and anything this guide leaves open, take advice from a solicitor or Citizens Advice.