Half of landlord maintenance demand comes outside working hours

Half of maintenance issues are reported out of hours as landlords face growing pressure to provide round-the-clock support.

Data from property management platform Lettie reveals 50.0% of maintenance cases were first logged outside Monday-to-Friday, 9am-to-5pm working hours, while 17.4% were first reported at weekends.

The management platform claims some of the maintenance problems most disruptive to tenants are also among those most likely to be raised when letting agents are traditionally closed.

Out-of-hours demand is striking

According to the findings, heating and hot-water issues showed one of the strongest out-of-hours patterns, with 73.1% first reported outside standard working hours.

Plumbing and drainage accounted for 21.6% of all cases, making it the largest individual maintenance category in the summer sample. This was followed by doors, windows and access at 12.8%, heating and hot water at 11.9%, and appliances and ventilation at 11.5%.

Damp and building fabric accounted for 9.2% of cases, while fittings and furniture and electrical and lighting each represented 8.7%.

Combined, plumbing and drainage and heating and hot water accounted for 33.5% of all maintenance cases.

Connor Hawkins, chief solutions officer at Lettie, said: “Anyone working in property management knows that maintenance does not stop at 5pm, but the scale of out-of-hours demand is striking.

“When half of maintenance cases are first reported outside the traditional working day – and almost three-quarters of heating and hot-water issues are reported out of hours – this can no longer be treated as an occasional exception.

“For landlords and letting agents, the challenge is having an effective way to capture the problem, understand its urgency and determine what needs to happen next, regardless of when a tenant reports it.”

Need to be prepared

More than one in eight cases showed evidence of a previous or recurring problem. Electrical and lighting issues showed the strongest pattern, with 26.3% showing evidence of a previous concern, followed by damp and building-fabric cases at 25.0%.

Mr Hawkins added that as property portfolios grow, landlords and letting agents need to be increasingly prepared for maintenance issues.

He said: “A meaningful proportion of issues have some previous history attached to them. Understanding whether something has happened before, whether an earlier repair was attempted or whether symptoms are recurring can materially affect what the right next step should be.

“As property portfolios become larger, maintaining that context becomes increasingly important.”