A dripping tap, three emails and an angry landlord
A tenant texts the property manager's mobile about a leaking tap. Two days later they email, because nobody replied. The property manager forwards it to a plumber, then gets pulled into a check-out. The plumber calls the tenant, cannot get access, and tells nobody. A week later the leak has damaged the kitchen cupboard and the landlord wants to know why nobody acted.
Multiply that by every managed property and you have a department that spends its day chasing, apologising and trying to remember who was told what.
Why repairs go missing
- Tenants report through whatever channel they have: phone, personal mobile, email, WhatsApp, the portal.
- Reports arrive without photos, location details or access information, so each one needs a call back.
- Urgency is judged by whoever reads it first, not by consistent rules.
- Landlord approval limits sit in the management agreement, which nobody checks in the moment.
- Contractors are instructed by email and report back by phone, so status is never recorded.
- Tenants hear nothing until they chase, which generates another message to handle.
The underlying issue is that there is no single record of a job from report to completion. Each channel holds a fragment.
It also depends on individuals. The property manager who knows that the boiler at number twelve has been temperamental all year carries that knowledge in their head. When they are on leave, the history goes with them, and whoever covers starts from nothing.
What lost repairs cost you
Small problems become expensive ones. Landlords lose confidence and move their portfolio. Tenants complain and, in some cases, have grounds to take things further, because landlords have legal duties around repairs that you are helping to meet. Your team spends time on status calls rather than on managing properties.
| Stage | Where it usually breaks |
|---|---|
| Report | Scattered channels, missing detail |
| Triage | Inconsistent urgency judgements |
| Approval | Landlord limits not checked, delays waiting for replies |
| Dispatch | Contractor not given access details |
| Completion | No confirmation, no invoice matched, tenant not told |
The maintenance workflow we build
- One reporting route for tenants: a short mobile web form or a WhatsApp flow, asking for the location, a description, photos or video and access availability.
- Messages that still arrive by email are read by a parser and turned into the same job format, with a person confirming anything unclear.
- Triage rules you set, such as no heating in winter, water leaks or security issues as urgent, with an AI step suggesting a category and priority from the description and photos for a person to confirm.
- Landlord approval checked against the limit you hold for each property. Jobs under the limit go straight ahead, jobs above it send the landlord a quote with an approve button.
- Contractor dispatch with the job details, photos, tenant contact and access notes, and a link for the contractor to accept, book and mark complete with photos.
- Automatic updates to the tenant at each stage, so they know when someone is coming.
- Everything logged against the property in your system (Reapit, Alto, Arthur or your own) through its API, with contractor invoices matched to the job.
If you already use a repairs tool and it works, we connect to it rather than replace it. The aim is one record per job, not another app.
Day to day, afterwards
The property manager opens a board showing every open job by stage and urgency. Nothing lives only in a mobile phone. Tenants get updates without asking. Landlords see approved spend and completion photos. When something stalls, the job flags itself rather than waiting for a complaint.
Over time the history becomes useful in its own right. You can see which properties generate the most call-outs, which contractors finish promptly and which jobs keep recurring. That is the kind of information that helps a landlord decide on a replacement boiler rather than a fourth repair, and it comes from records you are already keeping, just kept properly.
Recognise the pattern?
- Tenants report repairs to personal mobiles and several inboxes.
- You regularly call tenants back to ask for photos or access times.
- Nobody can see all open repairs and their status in one place.
- Contractors complete jobs without telling you.
- Landlords hear about problems from tenants before they hear from you.