A simple maintenance workflow for busy letting teams

Maintenance is where small agencies lose the most time, because every job arrives differently. It might be a text to a negotiator, an email to the office or a call from the landlord. The workflow below keeps one queue, one owner per job and a status that always answers the same question: who is waiting on whom? It describes how Verixad runs a repair, but the practice works in any system.

Immediate danger comes first

If anyone smells gas or suspects a leak, call the gas emergency line on 0800 111 999 straight away (the number for Great Britain), open the doors and windows, and turn the gas off at the meter if they know where the valve is. That is the HSE's advice. For fire, or anyone in danger, call 999. Telling the agency comes next, never instead. Verixad's report page shows the gas emergency number above the form for exactly this reason. Everything below is about what happens after that.

Make reporting easy and uniform

Give tenants one way to report a problem that does not depend on who they know. Verixad gives each agency a report link a tenant can use without an account: their name, how to reach them, the address, what is wrong and how urgent it feels. Every report lands in the same triage queue, so nothing depends on which inbox a report reached.

Triage: what “emergency” means in practice

Reporters choose one of three tiers, and the wording matters because tenants read it before choosing:

• Emergency: risk to safety or the property. Water coming through a ceiling or near electrics, a door that will not lock after a break-in, exposed wiring, or a smell of gas once the emergency line has been called. Respond at once: make it safe first, then arrange the repair.
• Urgent: getting worse or affecting daily life. No heating or hot water, a leak that is contained but ongoing, a toilet that will not flush where it is the only one. Book within days, not weeks, and treat no heating as an emergency in cold weather or where someone elderly, very young or unwell lives there.
• Normal: needs fixing, not dangerous. A dripping tap, a sticking window, a loose handle. Batch these sensibly, but give the tenant a date.

Those timings are working targets, not law. Private landlords in England have a duty under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to keep the structure, exterior and the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation and heating in repair. The fixed hazard timeframes of Awaab's Law do not apply to private lets yet (see the last section). Access rules do apply today: GOV.UK says the landlord has to give at least 24 hours' notice and visit at a reasonable time of day, unless it is an emergency and they need immediate access.

In Verixad an urgent or emergency report through the link also emails the agency's owners and admins straight away, so it does not wait for someone to open the queue. Triage itself is one act: attach the report to the right property and it becomes a job, with a starting priority taken from the tenant's tier (emergency to high, urgent to medium, normal to low) that you can change. Reports that are not repairs can be dismissed.

The statuses, and who each one waits on

1. New. Reported, not yet looked at. Triage within a working day: is anyone unsafe, is there water or gas involved, can the tenant wait?
2. Awaiting Approval. A quote or a decision is with the landlord. Record the date you asked and chase on a fixed rhythm rather than when you remember.
3. Awaiting Contractor. Nobody is available yet, or the contractor has not answered. Put a date on the chase.
4. Assigned. A named contractor has the job. Their name goes on the job, not in a note.
5. In Progress. Work has started. This is where “waiting for a part” lives, with a date.
6. Work Done, To Review. The contractor says it is finished and has sent the evidence. The agency answers, not the contractor.
7. Completed. The agency has checked the evidence and accepted the work.
8. Closed. The tenant is satisfied and the final cost is recorded, so the landlord statement is right first time.

Landlord approval limits

Jobs sit in Awaiting Approval longest when nobody knew whether to ask. Agree three things with each landlord at the start, and write them down where everyone handling jobs can see them:

• A spend limit below which you instruct without asking, for example the cost of a typical call-out and small repair.
• That emergency and safety work goes ahead at once, with the landlord told the same day.
• How quickly they will answer a quote, and what you do if they do not.

When you do ask, record who approved what, the amount and the date on the job itself. That one line settles most later disputes about a bill.

Contractors: one visit, evidence

Assign each job to one contractor, record one visit window on it, and share the access notes they need rather than the tenant's whole record. When the work is done, attach the before and after photos and the invoice to the job, then review them before marking it completed. Keep the standard simple: nothing is complete without an after photo, and the invoice goes on the job whenever there is one.

Keep the tenant informed

A one-line update prevents the second report and the complaint that follows it, but say it in the tenant's words, not yours: someone with a leak who reads “Awaiting Approval” assumes their landlord is refusing to pay. Use four plain states (Received, Being dealt with, Completed, Closed), tell the tenant when a visit is booked or moved, and say “Completed” only after you have accepted the work. Use the contact details they gave with their report.

Planned preventative maintenance

A planned preventative maintenance schedule is good practice, not a legal requirement in itself. What it does is stop the predictable reports from arriving at all, and keep the dated checks the law does require on time: a gas safety check at intervals of not more than 12 months under regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, an electrical inspection at least every five years under the Electrical Safety Standards Regulations 2020 (with any remedial work the report requires done within 28 days, or sooner if the report says so), and alarm checks on the day a new tenancy begins under the smoke and carbon monoxide alarm regulations. A simple calendar per property covers most of it:

• Boiler service booked alongside the annual gas check, so one visit does both.
• Gutters, drains and roof checked before winter, and again after a named storm.
• Extractor fans, window trickle vents and sealant checked at each inspection, because damp and mould start there.
• Anything the last inspection or EICR flagged as “keep an eye on” given its own date.

Put each item on the property as a dated task with an owner, and it will surface in the weekly review with everything else. The gas safety renewal guide and the alarm rules guide cover those dates in detail.

The record an enforcement question walks through

When a council officer, a tribunal or a landlord asks about a repair, they walk the same timeline: when it was reported and how urgent it was said to be, when someone looked at it, who was sent and when they visited, what was done and the evidence for it, when the agency accepted it, and what the tenant was told at each step. A job that carries its own history answers that without anyone reconstructing it from inboxes. In Verixad each job keeps an activity history that records what happened, when and who did it.

That record will matter more. Awaab's Law, which sets legal timeframes for dealing with serious hazards such as damp and mould, began applying to social housing on 27 October 2025, when its first phase came into force, and the Renters' Rights Act extends it to privately rented homes. The government's implementation roadmap lists the private rented sector timescales as to be confirmed, subject to consultation, so Awaab's Law timeframes do not yet apply to privately rented homes. The repair duties above already do. An agency that records report, triage and completion dates now will have the evidence those timeframes are measured against when they arrive.

Review it weekly

Open jobs belong in the same Monday review as expiring certificates: anything awaiting approval or a contractor gets chased, anything with work done gets reviewed, and anything finished gets closed so the list stays true. See the weekly compliance review, and what to keep for each job once it closes.

Verixad's maintenance jobs carry status, priority, contractor, visit, evidence and cost, and live next to the property they belong to. See tasks and maintenance, or how it works for letting agents.