Knowing your rights as a tenant

Types of visit to your home, relating to repairs or maintenance

Repairs

We aim to provide an excellent repairs service to our residents. We comply with our legal obligations and the tenancy agreements that we hold with our residents.

We’ll need access to your home to complete repairs, whether these are an emergency or are non-urgent, so always aim to contact you in advance to let you know.

Emergency repairs are needed if a problem presents immediate risks to your safety, security or health. For example loss of heating or flooding. To report an emergency repair call us straight away on 0800 085 1171 during and out of office hours. We aim to respond to these emergencies within 24 hours and keep residents informed.

Non-emergency repairs are things you can reasonably live with for a short time without immediate risk to your safety or health, for example, an internal door repair or plastering. We aim to respond to non-emergency repairs within 21 days and currently, we inform residents of their appointment in advance.

Being at home for planned non-emergency repairs appointments, gas and electric compliance checks and assessments/treatment of damp or mould is really important, to help us make sure we’re keeping your home safe and healthy. 

Unfortunately, every time someone misses their appointment, it means another resident that could have had that slot has missed out. Plus the huge cost of having to make repeat visits is also money we could have invested in improving resident’s homes instead.

We want to deliver the best possible service we can for our residents but we know people lead busy lives, so if you know you won’t be at home for your appointment please let us know as soon as you can. That gives us time to rearrange it and allows someone else to have your original slot.

Planned investment programme

We are committed to providing the best quality homes to our residents and every year, we also have a dedicated planned works programme. This programme is created from our Stock Condition Survey, which gives us information about all of our properties. If, as part of our planned works programme, your home is due to have any improvements, you will be contacted in advance by us so that we can carry out a survey of the work needed, and to let you know when we aim to start the work.

There is lots more information on our repairs service on our website here.

If you’re moving home

If you give us notice to terminate your tenancy, we carry out a ‘pre-termination’ assessment to check that everything is in good order. This could be either over the phone or in person. We will contact you in advance with a date and time if we are planning a home visit.  

Communications preferences

As part of our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) and delivering excellent services to residents, we want to make sure that we hold the most up to date information about our residents, including your individual contact preferences, and whether you have any specific service needs we need to be aware of. To help us achieve this, we’re carrying out a survey of residents in the coming weeks.

We’ll be contacting all CCHA residents to check we hold the most up to date information about you, to help us deliver our services in the best way for you.

Once the survey is complete, we will aim to make sure we always contact residents using their preferred method of contact wherever possible, including when we’re letting you know about a repair or visit.

We are committed to meeting the needs of our residents and offer support where we can, to allow you to live independently in your home with privacy and dignity for as long as possible.

If things have changed and you feel your home doesn’t meet your needs anymore, we’ll consider applications from Occupational Therapists, GPs or directly from a resident or their appointed representative, in writing, for aids and/or adaptations.

Our Adaptations Team will assess the application on an individual basis in relation to the tenancy, and the home itself, to allow us to deliver a high-quality service to our residents. Each application is then categorised into either a minor or major adaptation request.

Minor adaptations

Minor adaptations are generally discreet and not a fundamental change to the building fabric or structure. Examples include the fitting of:

• grab rails
• lever taps
• handrails

These adaptation applications, if agreed, are funded by CCHA and will be carried out by a local CCHA partner contractor, by appointment, usually within 21 days.

Major adaptations

Major adaptations are more significant. They affect the nature of the property and need design and specification by a qualified assessor or Occupational Therapist.

Examples include:

• level access showers
• ramps
• stairlifts
• wet rooms

These works are usually funded by a Disability Funding Grant (DFG) administered by the relevant local authority.

All applications for major adaptations need to be supported by an Occupational Therapist referral which will decide if the adaptation is needed and appropriate.

All referrals, once received by CCHA, are fully assessed. We look at things like the type of property, suitability for adaptation, tenancy history and alternative accommodation options.

If a major adaptation is agreed, the referral will be forwarded to the local authority who will usually arrange and supervise the works.

For more details or to fill in an enquiry form please visit the ‘Aids and adaptations’ page of our website.

We take the safety of our residents very seriously. Our Property Services Director, Rob Brittain, is the member of our Executive Lead Team responsible for property compliance and our investment and health and safety, as well as property repairs and the development of new homes. Rob is our health and safety lead under the Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 and has responsibility for the Consumer Standards relating to property and health and safety matters.

We have two teams dedicated to ensuring residents are kept safe. Our Property Compliance team makes sure our homes meet building safety standards including gas and electrical safety and the servicing of building components like lifts and fire alarms. This team checks that all of our risk assessments, including for fire and water, are up to date and meet all required legislation and regulation.

The Health and Safety team makes sure we have robust procedures in place. They monitor these and investigate any reports of health and safety risks to keep our residents and colleagues safe. The team regularly engage with residents in our schemes face to face and in writing to raise awareness of potential safety risks in their schemes. They also provide hints and tips to avoid these risks, such as a recent safety campaign to raise awareness of the fire risks associated with lithium batteries.

There is more information about the roles and responsibilities of the different teams at CCHA here.

As a regulated housing provider, we also make sure we comply with all of relevant legislation, including: 

• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
• The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985
• The Housing Act 2004
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
• Environmental Protection Act 1990
• The Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005
• Electricity at Work Regulations 1989
• The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1989
• Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015
• Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
• Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
• Fire Safety Act 2021
• Building Safety Act 2022
• Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2022
• The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER)

You have the right to contact the Housing Ombudsman at any time while your complaint is going through our complaints process. The Housing Ombudsman is available to offer advice and can provide help to find a resolution. To access advice from the Housing Ombudsman, please visit their website or call them on 0300 111 3000.

We welcomed the launch of the Complaint Handling Code from the Housing Ombudsman (HO). The code was first released in July 2020, aiming to drive consistent and good complaint handling practice across the housing association sector. The most recent version of the Code was published in February 2024, and became effective in April 2024.

As a landlord, we have to self-assess annually against the Code, to establish CCHA’s compliance against the requirements, and any actions needed. We report our compliance against the Code to CCHA’s Board and the HO annually.

At CCHA, we see complaints as an opportunity to learn and improve. We welcome all feedback from residents, including complaints, compliments and satisfaction with services feedback, as these are key to helping us continuously improve the services we provide to residents.

You can view our self-assessment and a copy of the Code by clicking the links below.

Further details of the Housing Ombudsman’s service can be found on their website.

You can read our self-assessment by clicking here