Report a repair - City of London estates
Note for leaseholders: Please refer to your lease agreement for repair responsibilities.
Phone
0800 035 0003 - 24 hours, seven days a week.
All faults can be reported between 8am - 5pm.
Out of hours emergency repairs only can be reported between 5pm - 8am.
For gas repair, please press option two and you will be passed onto TSG Building Services.
Write or visit
Property Services - Barbican Estate Office,
3 Lauderdale Place,
London, EC2Y 8EN
As your landlord the City of London is responsible for effectively maintaining communal areas and inside your home (our fittings). Tenants are responsible for their own fittings or improvements that have been made within their home. The City of London is not responsible for repairing or replacing any item that has been damaged on purpose or neglected. If we carry out works which we are not obliged to do, the cost of such work will be recharged to the tenant and is called a rechargeable repair.
Service standards
Priority X: Out-of-hours emergency - completed within 24 hours
Priority 1: In-hours emergency - completed within 24 hours
When there is an immediate risk to the resident, the building, or to both. This could include:
- An uncontainable water leak
- A blockage where raw sewage is overflowing into a home
- Dangerous structures which could collapse
- A front door or window that needs to be made safe after a break-in
- Electrical faults where there is danger of fire or injury
- Blocked toilet pans
- No electricity supply
- No mains water supply
- A toilet which cannot be used (if there is only one toilet in the property)
- No hot water
- A heating system that has broken down in winter, or if there is an elderly or disabled person or baby in the house
- A severe leak through the roof
- Treatment of severe, extensive mould growth or where the resident is at higher risk due to their age/medical conditions
Completed within 20 working days
This is for repairs that do not fall into priority X or 1 and could include:
- Repairing minor water leaks
- Repairing a toilet that is not flushing (if there is more than one toilet in the property)
- Unblocking a kitchen sink, bath, or hand basin
- Repairing garage doors and locks
- Repairing a faulty cooker panel, if cooking by electric
- Repairing a heating system (outside winter months)
- Replacing washers
- Replacing glass that has been made safe
- Replacing toilet seats (for elderly or disabled tenants)
- Repairing individual faulty door entry system or monitor
- Replacing baths, wash basins, kitchen sinks, toilet pans and cisterns
- Plastering and decorating
- Replacing wall and floor tiles
- Repairs to inside doors, locks and handles
- Repairing fences and gates
- Treatment of moderate or minor mould growth - isolated mould patched or spotting around windows or mastic seals
The lift maintenance and repair services are undertaken by a specialist contractor who responds to lift trappings and lift failures.
If you become trapped in a lift, for assistance press and hold the alarm button.
If you need to report a lift is not working (but you are not trapped inside) please report this to Property Services by phone 0800 035 0003 and press option 3, or email the Property Services team.
Gas safety for tenanted properties
The City of London, as your landlord, is required to check and service all gas appliances and associated pipe work that are used in all our tenanted properties, and it must be completed at a frequency of once every calendar year. Appliances such as boilers, cookers and gas fires which are in the City of London's ownership will be serviced annually and given a recognised and approved gas safety certificate for the forthcoming year.
The City of London has a gas servicing partnership contract with TSG Building Services, who is a registered company on the Gas Safety Register and are contracted to carry out the gas safety checks and to issue a gas safety certificate to tenants of the City of London. Therefore TSG will be expected to enter each tenanted property on our behalf to check the gas appliances. This is why our tenants' valued co-operation will be required to allow our partnering contractor into your property at least once a year. You will be notified well in advance before any service is due by our contractor.
Major works - health and safety documentation
Where we carry out construction / building works that are notifiable to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), we are required to produce a "Health and Safety" file detailing information necessary for future construction, maintenance, refurbishment or demolition to be carried out safely.
These files can be viewed by contacting Property Services by phone on 0800 035 0003 or email the Property Services team.
Repairs and maintenance contract - demobilisation and mobilisation updates
In our March update, we provided more details about the transition period in March between our new contractor Chigwell and the current contractor, Wates, to minimise disruption to residents. From 1 April, the new contract with Chigwell starts and the transition period and temporary revised repairs and maintenance service will no longer be in place. Here is some important information and changes about how repairs will be delivered as part of the new contract.
Requesting a repair
Emergency repairs should always be reported by telephone 0800 035 0003. Non-emergency repairs can be reported by telephone 0800 035 0003 or by emailing the Repairs Service Desk.
Wates continued to take emergency repairs until 5pm on 31 March and out-of-hours emergency repair calls until 8am on 1 April. Any follow-on repairs after an emergency call out by Wates, will be raised as a new repair to Chigwell the following day.
Repair priorities and timescales
We are changing our repair priorities and timescales from the previous priorities one to four to the following:
Priority X – Out-of-hours emergency: Complete within 24 hours
Priority 1 – In-hours emergency: Complete within 24 hours
Priority 2 – Non-emergency: Complete within 20 working days
For all emergency repairs, we aim to arrive within four hours and make safe or complete temporary repairs within 24 hours. If any follow up repairs are required after an emergency call out, a new work order will be issued the following working day.
Appointments
Chigwell will be offering two daily appointment slots:
Morning appointments: Monday to Friday, 8am-1pm
Afternoon appointments: Monday to Friday, 1-5pm
When a repair is reported and it is included in the repairs service offer, we will raise an order to Chigwell. If the repair issue is more complex, we may instruct a Property Services Officer to inspect the issue first.
For all non-emergency repairs inside the home, Chigwell will contact residents within two working days of the order to arrange an appointment. Chigwell will provide residents with an appointment confirmation and ensure that a skilled operative and appropriate amount of time is allocated to the initial appointment.
Residents should contact Chigwell directly to cancel or reschedule an appointment, at least 24 hours in advance of the appointment time.
Quality checks on completed repairs
The City of London Corporation and Chigwell will undertake quality inspections on a selection of completed repairs. This is to ensure that the repair has been completed, and to a suitable standard of workmanship. If a repair inside your home is selected for a quality inspection, you will be contacted to arrange a suitable appointment date and time. For smaller value or simple repairs, we may undertake a telephone quality inspection with you to confirm that you are happy with the completed repair.
Measuring performance
We are introducing a comprehensive range of performance metrics for Chigwell to support a high standard of service delivery. Metrics include resident satisfaction with the repair, time taken to complete a repair, appointments made and kept, repair quality and if the repair was completed on the first visit.
Overall, we expect that these changes provide an improved repairs and maintenance service for our residents.
In our February update, we notified you that there will be a transition period between our new contractor Chigwell and the current contractor, Wates. The transition period and temporary revised repairs and maintenance service is now in effect until 31 March, prior to the new contract with Chigwell starting on 1 April. The revised service aims to minimise disruption or inconvenience to residents due to the change in contractor from Wates to Chigwell.
Throughout the revised service period, Wates will continue to undertake new daytime and out-of-hours emergency repairs. The target response times for an emergency repair are either four hours or 24 hours, depending on the situation. Wates will also aim to complete any other repairs that they’ve been previously assigned.
From 3 March, Chigwell will be issued non-emergency repairs. They will contact residents to schedule an appointment within two working days of receiving the work order. Chigwell will start to book contractor appointments for some repairs from 17 March onwards. The target response time for non-emergency repairs is 20 working days or less.
Emergency repairs should always be reported by telephone 0800 035 0003.
Non-emergency repairs can be reported by telephone 0800 035 0003 or by emailing the Repairs Service Desk.
In our January update, we updated you that there will be a crossover period between Chigwell and the current contractor, Wates, and that we’d provide more details about this period throughout February and March.
From 1 March to 31 March, we will operate a temporary revised repairs and maintenance service, prior to the new contract with Chigwell starting on 1 April. The revised service aims to minimise disruption or inconvenience to residents due to the change in contractor from Wates to Chigwell.
Throughout the revised service period, Wates will continue to undertake new daytime and out-of-hours emergency repairs. The target response times for an emergency repair are either four hours or 24 hours, depending on the situation. Wates will also aim to complete any other repairs that they’ve been previously assigned.
Chigwell will be issued non-emergency repairs from 1 March. They will contact residents to arrange an appointment after 1 April. The target response time for non-emergency repairs is 20 working days or less.
Emergency repairs should always be reported by telephone 0800 035 0003.
Non-emergency repairs can be reported by telephone 0800 035 0003 or by email the Property Services Team.
After the successful procurement and award of the new Repairs and Maintenance contract to Chigwell in December 2024, we are about to commence mobilisation of the new contract, which will take place between January and March 2025.
Some key areas of focus during the mobilisation period will be:
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Ensuring that Chigwell have suitable and sufficient resources in place to deliver a full range of repairs services from 1 April 2025.
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Integrating and improving our IT systems to support efficient and accurate repairs ordering.
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Acting on resident feedback by reviewing basic repairs processes, to improve the overall experience of the service.
We will work with Chigwell and residents to develop a plan for continuous improvement of the service once the new contract is in place and the service has stabilised.
Demobilisation of the Wates contract also begins in January 2025. We will be focused on ensuring Wates complete the work issued to them and that service and workmanship standards are maintained.
We recognise there will need to be a ‘cross over’ period in March 2025, where some repairs will no longer be issued to Wates, because they are unlikely to complete the repair before their contract end date. The approach to the cross over and any changes to repairs delivery will be formally agreed with both Wates and Chigwell in January 2025 and communicated to all residents during February and March 2025.
Following our last update, a new general repairs and maintenance contract has been out to tender with a deadline for submissions on 26 July. We have now completed the first stage evaluation.
Thirteen submissions were received from different contractors. Seven contractors have given confidence in the ability to deliver the new contract and have been taken forward to the second stage. The second stage tender has now been released with a tender return date of 25 September, following which tender evaluation will be completed.
We have technical and operational staff and consultants evaluating different areas of the final stage, as well as residents from three different Housing Estates. This will ensure a clear and fair consensus is reached when evaluating submissions.
We anticipate sharing the outcome of the final evaluation in late October and remain on-track to mobilise a new contract for April 2025.
On Wednesday 26 June, we went out to tender for our repairs and maintenance
procurement.
We would once again like to thank many residents for their contributions, be it via our
public consultations in February, working groups, and section 20 observations; all of which
we have taken onboard to help craft this procurement.
The highlights of this tender package are as follows:
- Handyperson service – two multiskilled tradespeople working 5 days a week, equipped
with commonly used materials and equipment to undertake minor repairs, and to be rotated amongst estates on a demand basis. - Recruitment of a dedicated contract manager – to better oversee performance, scrutinise orders, and enforce the terms of the contract, including an updated code of conduct.
- Emphasis placed on quality and workmanship within the tender evaluation scoring.
- Client-only break clause which can be activated after 3 years of the 5-year contract term.
- Resident involvement with quality evaluation scoring
- Revised technology requirements – to improve the flow and scope of information from the contractor to CoL staff, and to future-proof for potential new systems.
We remain on target to deliver these changes within the new contract, due to commence
on April 1 2025.