Emergency Maintenance Contracts are an increasingly important part of the homeowner’s toolkit. They bring an assurance that, should equipment or installations in the home break down, someone is on call to deal with the situation, issue advice and, most importantly, come out and fix the problem immediately, day or night for free. There’s no need to rifle through the phone directory in search of repairers, or worry about how long you will have to wait before an engineer can reach you. With an Emergency Maintenance Contract (EMC) you have no such inconveniences. Instead you have access to a 24/7 emergency repair service offering practical advice and emergency cover for a wide range of home appliance and utilities (break down) [breakdown] issues. No matter where you are in the UK, a qualified engineer will be dispatched to your property within hours to diagnose and repair the problem. It’s a fast and reliable service that offers genuine peace of mind to all homeowners, from the elderly and infirm to first time buyers.
Emergency Maintenance Contracts for Landlords
But Emergency Maintenance Contracts are not the exclusive domain of the homeowner. Landlords and tenants can gain much from an EMC too. In fact, for landlords working through a Housing Association, an EMC is often now a requirement, the reason being it effectively guarantees that only qualified personnel can work on equipment and installations in the property, cutting out issues that could jeopardise the landlord’s business or expose them to prosecution, as could well be the case if repair issues were left in the hands of a variety of local contractors, or worse, a friend of the tenant.
It offers immense convenience too. When a tenant reports a problem, what is the first thing you, as the landlord, must do? That’s right – pretty much drop everything and go searching the Internet or the businesses pages of the local phone directory to track down a suitable repair engineer. Several phone calls later and you still might not have an engineer who can come out this week, let alone on the same day as you make the call. It’s time consuming on your part, and in the eyes of your tenant, and perhaps the Housing Association you work with, it’s unprofessional – an issue that could well lose you business.
Even if you’ve got contacts already in place, it’s only on rare occasions that the engineer can get over to your tenant’s property straightaway. Most likely they’ll be on another job, and have several more lined up too before they can visit the property. If it’s an emergency, the tenant may not be able to wait that long!
Having an (EMC) [Emergency Maintenance Contract] in place avoids these hassles. Simply call your Emergency Maintenance Contract provider and your tenant’s problems are taken care of – easy!
But what about cost? Well, you might be surprised to learn just how cost effective putting an Emergency Maintenance Contract in place can be. If you want proof, just add up what you spent on dealing with emergency repair issues in your rental properties during the last 12 months. How about boiler servicing and the cost of having those annual certification checks? Don’t forget too to add on the cost of all those one-off jobs for the tenant, such as unblocking drains and fixing or replacing appliances. With prices for Emergency Maintenance Contracts starting at less than £200, you’re almost certain to find that an EMC will save you money as once it is in place it won’t cost you a penny more!
Are you a tenant?
Emergency Maintenance Contracts provide the same benefits to tenants as they do to homeowners. Ask your landlord to provide an EMC for the property – for your peace of mind you might want to only consider accommodation where the landlord does supply an EMC. This way, if a gas or electrical installation becomes faulty, or equipment and appliances supplied by the landlord break down, you are GUARANTEED a rapid response to the issue – an engineer could be with you in as little as four hours of you reporting the problem.
It’ll certainly be less for you to worry about, and means that you won’t have to contend with a slow service from the landlord, or wait for weeks or even months to get a fault fixed.
To benefit from an (EMC) [Emergency Maintenance Contract] you’ll need to request a copy of the Contract from your landlord. On it will be a policy reference number and a telephone number to call to request emergency assistance. You’ll need to quote the policy reference number when you call, so keep the Contract by the phone ( [or stick a note on yourboiler], or ) make a note of the telephone number and policy number so that it is within easy reach for when you need it.
One last point to bear in mind – if your landlord has an (EMC) [Emergency Maintenance Contract] in place, DON’T call your mates or a friend of a friend to come and carry out repairs. Your landlord can get it all done for free!
An (EMC) [Emergency Maintenance Contract] for every occasion
Homeowner, tenant[, managing agent] or landlord – it matters not who you are(, [or ] ) the type of property you live in (or its current condition); an Emergency Maintenance Contract can save you a lot of time and a whole heap of unnecessary expense. If you want to guarantee that your boiler and gas fire are in good hands this winter, or indeed at any time of the year – and if you want the assurance that all those summer emergencies* are covered, ( like faulty air conditioning units or a broken water pump in the outdoor jacuzzi,) an (EMC) [Emergency Maintenance Contract] is about the only thing you need!
*Note: Items [like faulty air conditioning units or a broken water pump in the outdoor jacuzzi,] Flood damage[and awnings or Succah and its roof ] (is) [are] generally not included as part of Emergency Maintenance Contracts,
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