How long does a landlord have to carry out a repair?

The law says repairs must be done within a reasonable time, which depends on severity. In practice, emergencies affecting safety, heating, water or security are expected within around 24 hours, urgent repairs within a few days, and routine repairs within about 28 days.

Can a tenant withhold rent if repairs are not done?

Withholding rent is risky and can lead to arrears and possession action. The usual route is to report the issue in writing, give the landlord reasonable time, then escalate to the local council's environmental health team, who can inspect under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System.

Who is responsible for repairs caused by tenant damage?

Landlords are responsible for the structure, exterior, and the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation and heating. Damage beyond fair wear and tear caused by the tenant or their visitors is generally the tenant's responsibility.

What records should a landlord keep about repairs?

Keep the original report, dated photos, any correspondence, the contractor's quote and invoice, the date of attendance and confirmation that the work was completed. This record is what protects you in a deposit dispute, a council inspection or a housing disrepair claim.

Guide · Landlords

Landlord repair responsibilities in the UK

If you let a property in England or Wales, most repair obligations are not negotiable — they are written into every tenancy by statute. Here is what you must repair, how fast, and what proof to keep.

What the law puts on the landlord

Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is implied into almost every assured shorthold tenancy of under seven years. It cannot be contracted out of, and it makes the landlord responsible for:

The structure and exterior of the property, including walls, roof, windows, external doors, guttering and drains.
Installations for the supply of water, gas and electricity, and for sanitation — basins, sinks, baths and toilets.
Installations for space heating and heating water, which in most homes means the boiler and radiators.

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 goes further: the property must be fit to live in at the start of and throughout the tenancy. Serious damp, mould, disrepair or fire and electrical safety hazards can make a home unfit even where no single Section 11 item has failed.

How quickly you have to act

The statutory wording is "within a reasonable time" from when you are put on notice. There is no fixed statutory clock, but the widely used benchmarks are:

Priority	Typical examples	Expected response
Emergency	Uncontrolled leak, total loss of heating or hot water in cold weather, gas smell, exposed live wiring, insecure front door	Attend within ~24 hours
Urgent	Partial loss of heating, blocked toilet where there is only one, minor leak, faulty extractor causing damp	Within ~3–7 days
Routine	Dripping tap, cosmetic damage, sticking window, worn seals	Within ~28 days

The clock starts when you are notified, not when you get round to reading the message. That is why the date a report was received matters as much as the date the repair was done.

Notice, access and the tenant's side

You are entitled to reasonable access to inspect and repair, normally with at least 24 hours' written notice at a reasonable time of day. Tenants must allow that access, keep the property in a tenant-like manner, and report faults promptly — a small leak left unreported that becomes a ceiling collapse shifts responsibility.

What happens when repairs are ignored

A tenant can report disrepair to the local council, whose environmental health officers assess the property under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. Category 1 hazards can trigger improvement notices, emergency remedial action carried out at your cost, and civil penalties. Outstanding disrepair also blocks a Section 21 notice where an improvement notice has been served, and can support a housing disrepair claim for compensation and an order to carry out the works.

Evidence is the part most landlords get wrong

In nearly every dispute the argument is not whether the repair was needed — it is when it was reported, what was said, and how long it took. Scattered WhatsApp threads, personal email and phone calls make that impossible to reconstruct twelve months later.

A defensible record for each repair contains: the tenant's original report with photos and a timestamp, the urgency it was assessed at, who was instructed and when, the quote and the approval, the attendance date, and confirmation from the tenant that the work fixed the problem.

Mainto builds that record automatically. Every repair lives in one thread shared by tenant and landlord and the tradesperson, with photos, AI urgency triage, quotes, approvals and dual sign-off all timestamped — and compliance certificates tracked alongside them.

For how that process runs end to end, see landlord repair management.

Frequently asked questions

Keep a repair trail without keeping the spreadsheet

Tenants report, urgency is triaged automatically, vetted local trades quote, and every step is logged against the property. £5 per completed job, no subscription.