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Maintenance and Repairs
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First Choice is responsible for keeping the structure of your home in a good condition. This includes the inside and outside of your home, drains, repairing gutters, rain water pipes, gas and plumbing systems, baths, toilets, heating and hot water supplies.
The Getting Things Fixed file
In your home there is a file called “Getting Things Fixed”. The file tells you all about the maintenance service you can expect from First Choice.
Paying for repairs
First Choice will pay for repairs to your home, but if you, your
support staff or visitors break something by accident or on purpose, you must pay for that yourself.
Who does the repairs and maintenance?
The people who carry out repairs to your home are called contractors. They will let you know when they are coming to your home, unless it is an emergency repair. If it is an emergency they will try to come within 24 hours.
All contractors sign a “Code of Conduct”. This means that they must be polite and helpful when they are working in your home. They must carry out the work in your home safely.
At least once every two years, First Choice staff will visit your home to check
that it is in a good condition. If any work needs to be done
First Choice will arrange it.
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Reporting a
Repair |
Step 1 - Fill in a repair request form.
The forms are in the “Getting Things Fixed” file in your home.
You can also use the link above to send a form on-line.
Step 2 - Send the repair request form to First Choice Housing Association Ltd, 19 Stanwell Road, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, CF64 2EZ.
First Choice will decide whether the repair is an emergency, urgent, day to day or planned repair. First Choice will then send a work order to a contractor. A copy of the work order will be sent to your home so that you know when the repair will be completed. |
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Types of Repair |
Emergency repairs are repairs which may cause harm to you or may seriously damage your home. They will be fixed in 24 hours. Emergency repairs include:-
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Loss of hot water. |
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Loss of heating during the
winter. |
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Burst pipes and serious
plumbing leaks. |
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Blocked or leaking drains. |
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Loss of toilet and bathing facilities,
where there are no others in the property. |
If you have an emergency repair:
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Telephone First Choice |
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If our offices are not open telephone one of our contractors yourself.
A list of contractors is in the Getting Things Fixed file in your home
or click on the map above. |
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If none of our contractors can help you can use any contractor, for example, from the Yellow Pages.
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Please ring us as soon as possible to let us know if you have
called a contractor in an emergency. |
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Emergency
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Urgent
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Urgent repairs are serious repairs which will be fixed in 7 days. |
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Day
to Day |
Day to day repairs are things like a dripping tap which do not
need to be fixed as quickly as no-one is in danger. They will be fixed in 28 days. |
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Planned
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Planned repairs are small repairs which will be carried out within 3 months as part of the planned maintenance programme. |
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Decorating |
First Choice will decorate the outside of your home and any fences which belong to First Choice, every five years.
You are responsible for decorating your own bedroom.
The organisation providing you with extra
property and management services will make sure that the shared
areas of your home are decorated. The shared areas of your home
are the bathroom, kitchen, hall, lounge and dining room. This is
paid for by the service charge you pay in your rent. |
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Adaptations |
First Choice knows that
changes may have to be made to a house so that it is suitable
for a new tenant to move into or because people already living
in the house may want changes made because their needs have
changed. Requests for
making changes should be put in a letter to First Choice. We
will then reply within 14 days. Whenever possible, we will say
“Yes”. First Choice will
work together with tenants, tenants' Support Providers and Social
Services departments to get the money to pay for these changes.
If the changes can be made to the house, First Choice can ask
for money from 5 different places :-
1) Welsh Assembly Government
2)
Local Authority Social Services Department
3) Your Support Providers
4) You may be able to pay
5) First Choice may be able to pay
Wherever the money comes from to pay for the changes, the work
must be carried out to a good standard that First Choice is
happy with.
First Choice will tell the tenant and the tenants' Support Provider who
is responsible in the future for looking after
the part of the house which has been changed. First Choice may
have to do the maintenance or it might be the tenant or the
tenants' Support Provider.
If “Planning Permission” is needed then it must be agreed before
any work starts on making the changes. First Choice must be
given copies of this paperwork to keep in the office.
When the tenant who needed the changes leaves the house to
live somewhere else, they can remove the adaptation if they paid
for it. But, they must make sure that the part of the house is
changed back to how it was before. |
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Recharges |
First Choice will pay for repairs to your
house, but if you, your visitors or your support staff break something by accident or on purpose, you will have to pay for the repair yourself.
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£ £ £ £ |
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