BHA Repairs Service - Berwickshire Housing Association

All You Need To Know about BHA Repairs Service

New contractors delivering specialist services

At BHA, we are committed to further improving our services to ensure that our customers receive the best possible support and care for their homes.

We have recently increased the number of contractors we use for repairs based on your feedback from individual repair reports, surveys, our Customer Voice Group, and Scrutiny Panel. Building on the success of these changes, we have established new arrangements aimed at further improving our customer service around repairs. These new arrangements will launch on August 29th.

BHA Appointed Contractors

The following are the list of contractors BHA has appointed for the period of August 2024 till Aug 2026.

Areas where BHA is responsible for repairs

As your landlord, BHA, is required to ensure your homes meet specific standards and to carry out repairs on the following:

Pipes, drains, toilets and sinks

grayscale photography of faucet

Gas, electricity and heating systems

Damp and mould caused by repair issues

Your roof, windows, doors and the exterior of your home

Communal hallways, lifts and shared areas

Easy Guide to Responsibilities

*Please note that some local changes may apply in some cases.

Customer Responsibilities

Our tenancy agreement also require all BHA customers to do the following:

You must report repairs as soon as you notice them.
Give access for repairs
You must allow BHA contractors and your Neighbourhood Manager into your home for inspections and repairs at reasonable times of the day. We will provide you at least 24 hours’ notice in writing before anyone comes over. BHA will not need to give notice to customers for repairs to shared areas, like hallways or roofs of flats. In an event of an emergency, you may not get any notice. Where we deem repairs to be of an essential nature, we may force access to be able to remedy the issue. BHA will try to avoid this situation by working with you to gain access.
Making home improvements
You are usually responsible if you want to make improvements to your home. For example, if your home does not have a shower but you want one, it’s an improvement and that would be your responsibility (see Adaptations). You usually need permission to make improvements, such as replacing kitchen units.
Keeping your home in good condition
You must carry out minor maintenance, such as: keeping your home clean, checking smoke alarm batteries and heating your home, so pipes do not freeze and burst. (see Assistance with energy bills).

Rechargeable Repairs

What is a Rechargeable Repair?

When something goes wrong in your home and you need to report a repair, BHA will do everything we can to get it sorted as quickly as possible. However, if the repair isn’t our responsibility or has occurred through damage caused by you, then we’ll need to ask you to cover the cost. This is known as a rechargeable repair.

Such repairs are also rechargeable, in instances where BHA had to take action, as no action could have the resulted in serious damage to the property and/or neighbouring homes.

Examples include:

forced access to a property to carry out a gas service
forced entry due to lost keys
misuse of the emergency call out system or no access for an emergency repair
holes in doors as a result of wilful damage

BHA is aware that in some circumstances repairs might be needed which are rechargeable but there may be justifying factors. These could be that the repairs are the part of a domestic abuse situation or the result of particular needs. In these situations, BHA will work with you to understand what additional support we can offer or access we can provide and we will actively review any decision to recharge such repairs.

If you are in this situation, please contact us for a confidential chat.

Right to Repair

Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, Scottish secure tenants and short Scottish secure tenants have the right to have small urgent repairs carried out by their landlord within a given timescale. This is called the Right to Repair scheme.

Priority Repairs

Reactive Repairs - How fast will this be done?

BHA will prioritise certain types of repairs. Where an emergency category is given, our contractor will attend and make it safe within 6 hours. Where we deem a repair to be urgent, we will aim to have the work completed in 3 days and for routines, in 10 days.

Repair Timescales

Planned and Cyclical Maintenance

This includes all the servicing BHA carries out to parts of your home (eg. gas/ electrics) and planned maintenance refers to when we replace a component such as a kitchen/ bathroom/ window/ doors/ heating as part of a programme of works.

Find out more

Adaptations

BHA can fund adaptations to homes through our access to external funding where mobility, long term illness or a disability has resulted in requirement changes to our customers' homes.

Find out more