Repairs you must do yourself

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We must do certain repairs by law; on the structure of your home, on gas, on electricity, on plumbing, on heating installations and so on. These repairs are free.

There are other repairs that we do not have to do by law, which are your responsibility. We have in the past carried out these repairs free of charge. Unfortunately we can no longer fund these repairs. If we carried on doing them, we would not have enough money for the repairs that we have to do by law.

You need to make your own arrangements to carry out these repairs. We appreciate that this might make things difficult for some tenants so we have arranged with our contractor, Manchester Working Ltd, to offer a repairs service which you can pay for.

If you want Northwards Housing to arrange the repairs for you, payment will be needed in full before the work can take place.

You should not carry out any work yourself (or through employing your own contractor) without first reading our 'Asbestos in your home' leaflet (pdf 288kb), just in case there is a chance that asbestos could be present. Copies are available from Northwards offices or by following the above link.

Health and Safety

There may be times when you think a repair is required by law for health and safety reasons. Tell us about it, and we will investigate it further. This does not mean that we will carry out the full repair, we will just do what is necessary to ensure your health and safety.

Repairs and replacements you have to pay for include:

Internal:

  • Bath panels
  • Baths, wash basins, toilets and cisterns for cosmetic reasons such as discolouration or surface cracking
  • Over bath showers, unless the shower is adapted for the disabled; although we will carry out an initial check to make sure an electric shower is safe
  • Plugs and chains
  • Toilet seats
  • Kitchen unit doors, drawers, shelves, hinges, handles and worktops
  • Vinyl tile and sheet floor coverings unless the floorcovering has been installed as part of adaptation works for the disabled
  • Pipe boxing
  • Cupboard doors, hinges, handles and shelves to airing and meter cupboards and the like
  • Skirting boards
  • Door architraves
  • Internal doors and door furniture – provided it isn’t a fire door
  • Staircase creaking
  • Small plaster cracks
  • Mould treatment resulting from condensation – see Northwards' Condensation leaflet
  • Lifts and stairlifts will only be removed following tenancy termination
  • Electric fires – provided it isn’t the only source of heat in the property; although we will carry out an initial check to make sure the electric fire is safe
  • Gas fires – provided it isn’t the only source of heat in the property; although we will carry out an initial check to make sure the gas fire is safe

    • External:

  • Forcing entry where tenants have locked themselves out
  • Locks on external doors – provided it isn’t the only lock on the door
  • Bolts, chains, spy holes and letter plates on external doors
  • Window locks
  • Window draughtproofing
  • Brickwork and air bricks – provided the property isn’t affected internally
  • Fencing, gates, gate furniture and padlocks
  • Garden walls – provided it doesn’t affect health and safety
  • Flag or tarmac paths – provided it doesn’t affect health and safety
  • Clothes posts and rotary dryers
    • Showers & fires

    If you report a faulty electric shower, electric fire or gas fire, we will visit you to make sure that it's safe. However, if during the course of this visit it looks like a full repair can be achieved quickly and easily, we will happily do this.

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