What does a “reasonable time” to carry out repairs mean?

Notice and reasonable time are two different questions

This page follows directly from what counts as notice, and the distinction between them is the thing most often collapsed.

Notice asks when the landlord knew enough about the defect to be expected to investigate or repair it. Reasonable time asks how long they then had to deal with it. A landlord is not in breach one second after a repair report lands — they need a chance to investigate, diagnose, arrange access and do the work. But that chance is not unlimited, and at some point delay stops being reasonable.

When the clock starts

For an ordinary defect inside your home, it starts when the landlord has sufficient notice or knowledge — which is not necessarily the date of your formal complaint. If you reported a leak on 4 January and their contractor inspected it on 8 January, the landlord does not get to treat your 20 January complaint as the first they knew of it.

What the case law actually says

The rule is longstanding and short: once the landlord has notice, the repair must be completed within a reasonable time. What is reasonable depends on all the circumstances, and the courts have deliberately declined to fix a number.

Morris v Liverpool City Council

The fire brigade forced entry to a council flat, destroying the door and frame. The council knew, and boarded the doorway. Several days later, before the door had been replaced, the flat was burgled. The Court of Appeal held that a delay of about six days had not been shown to be an unreasonable period in which to replace the door.

That does not create a rule that landlords always get a week. It shows the opposite of a rule: the court looked at the actual defect in its actual circumstances — including that the council had boarded the opening in the meantime — rather than applying a universal number of days. It is also a useful corrective to tenant-facing material that implies any delay is actionable.

The tenant usually has to prove the delay

This is the practical consequence and it is rarely stated. Establishing that something was broken is not enough: where a case turns on delay after notice, the burden is generally on the tenant to show the landlord failed to act within a reasonable period.

That is why the chronology matters so much — when the landlord first knew, what inspection happened, when contractors attended, what temporary work was done, when parts were ordered, which appointments were offered, what failed, and when it was finally put right. Without that history it is hard to show where a reasonable period ended and unreasonable delay began.

What makes a period reasonable

There is no exhaustive list, but the recurring factors are these.

• How serious the defect is. A broken cupboard hinge and a ceiling liable to collapse over a child’s bed cannot sensibly share a timetable.
• Whether it is dangerous — and if so, what could have been made safe today even if the permanent repair takes longer.
• Whether delay will cause further damage. A localised roof leak becomes saturated plaster, mould, rotten timber and damaged electrics.
• Whether replacement parts are genuinely available.
• Whether a specialist contractor or proper investigation is needed before the right work can be identified.
• Whether a third party — freeholder, superior landlord, management company — has to consent.
• Whether you allowed reasonable access.
• Whether you are living in the property, and who else is: an occupant particularly vulnerable to that hazard changes what a reasonable landlord should do.

Temporary repairs can be required

A temporary repair is not the landlord doing you a favour. Where a defect is dangerous or likely to cause further damage, interim work may be required while the permanent repair is organised. So a three-week wait for a made-to-measure component may explain why the final work is not done — it does not explain water pouring into a bedroom for three weeks with nothing covering the opening and no protection for the electrics.

Investigation time is real, and it can run out

Damp can come from water penetration, plumbing, condensation, failed heating, cold bridging, ventilation, drainage or several of those interacting, so it can be reasonable to investigate properly rather than guess. But repeated investigation without effective action eventually becomes part of the delay. A tenant eighteen months into a mould problem should not be expected to accept “we’re still investigating” where the same unsuccessful inspection has simply been repeated.

Are 24-hour, 7-day and 28-day targets the law?

No. Many landlords sort repairs into emergency, urgent, routine and planned, with targets such as 24 hours, 7 days and 28 days. Those categories are policy and practice. The law fixes no period, and there is no rule that a routine repair is lawful so long as it is done within 28 days.

A 28-day target is not a licence to wait 28 days

This is the more important half, and it is the one landlords rely on. A published 28-day target is a ceiling on the landlord’s own promise, not a floor under the legal test. It does not entitle anyone to wait until day 28 before addressing dangerous electrics, severe water penetration or a total heating failure in January. An administrative classification cannot turn unreasonable delay into reasonable delay simply because an internal target has not yet expired.

But the policy still matters as evidence

Do not throw it away. If a landlord promises emergency repairs within 24 hours and then takes ten days without explanation, that published commitment is relevant to whether the response was reasonable, to a complaint, and to an ombudsman. Social landlords often carry detailed commitments in tenancy agreements, tenant handbooks, repair policies and service standards.

There is a difference between a service target — “we aim to complete routine repairs in 28 days” — and a contractual term, such as a tenancy agreement expressly promising a response or incorporating a repairs document. A tenancy can give you more than Section 11 requires; what it cannot do is contract out of the statutory obligation, which section 12 restricts. So keep the policy, check whether your tenancy incorporates it, and assume neither that it is automatically binding nor that it is meaningless.

Does a failed repair restart the clock?

Honestly: nobody knows, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. There is no authority establishing that every failed repair restarts the period from zero, and none establishing that the original period always continues unchanged. Shelter’s legal guidance does not address it.

So do not build an argument on a clock-reset rule that does not exist. What you can do is factual and stronger: the original notice remains evidence that the landlord knew, and if the repair did not remedy the defect, record that clearly. A leak reported on 4 January, sealed on 10 January, returning on 18 January and still present in March is the history of one unresolved defect — not four unrelated incidents that happen to share a wall.

A genuinely new defect is different

If a leaking pipe was properly replaced, the property stayed dry for a substantial period, and a different pipe later failed, that may really be a new defect needing fresh notice and a fresh assessment. The question is whether you are dealing with the same unresolved problem or a new one, and that is a question of fact.

Repeated attempts become evidence anyway

Even without a clock rule, repetition tells its own story. Mould painted over four times, a drain cleared repeatedly without investigating the collapse causing it, a failing boiler reset every few weeks, a roof patched again and again. At some point the question moves from “did the landlord attend?” to “did the landlord take reasonable steps to remedy the underlying defect?” Attendance is evidence of activity. It is not automatically evidence of compliance.

Awaab’s Law: a fixed clock for some social-housing hazards

This is where "reasonable time" stops being the whole answer. For qualifying social housing in England, Awaab’s Law imposes fixed statutory deadlines. Since 27 October 2025, the periods below apply, under the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, which cover emergency hazards and significant damp and mould.

• Emergency hazard: investigate and, where confirmed, carry out relevant safety work as soon as reasonably practicable and within 24 hours.
• Significant damp or mould: investigate within 10 working days of becoming aware.
• A written summary of the investigation within 3 working days of it concluding.
• Relevant safety work within 5 working days of the investigation.

Where those apply, a social landlord cannot answer them with “Section 11 only requires a reasonable time, and we thought six weeks was reasonable”. The statutory duty stands on its own. That is precisely why commentators described Awaab’s Law as an end to “a reasonable period” — before it, there were no strict timescales at all.

It does not replace the ordinary duties

Section 11 and the fitness duty create the underlying obligations and the general reasonable-time framework. Awaab’s Law adds specific response requirements for hazards in its scope. Both apply; neither erases the other.

Wider than Section 11 in one way, narrower in another

Awaab’s Law is built around hazards and deficiencies — and a deficiency can be a defect, disrepair, or a lack of maintenance. So a condition can engage it even where a Section 11 argument runs into the problem that nothing has deteriorated enough to count as disrepair, which is the gap explained on our Section 11 and fitness pages.

But its fixed clocks do not cover every broken item in every social home. If a problem falls outside the scope, that does not mean there is no duty — it means the ordinary rules carry on doing their usual work. Awaab’s Law is a hard timetable for specified hazards, not a universal repair timetable.

And a policy cannot undercut it

Where Awaab applies, a handbook saying “emergency work usually within 48 hours” cannot reduce a statutory right to have it done within 24. A policy can promise more than the law requires. It cannot displace the statutory minimum.

Phase 2 is scheduled to come into force on 30 November 2026, and would widen the duties to a much broader set of serious hazards. The deadlines themselves do not change. See Awaab’s Law for the detail and what to do when a deadline passes.

Right to Repair: the other hard clock

Awaab’s Law is not the only statutory repair timetable, and the other one is almost never mentioned on tenant-facing pages. The Secure Tenants of Local Housing Authorities (Right to Repair) Regulations 1994 apply to secure tenants of local housing authorities — council tenants — for specified small urgent repairs the council is responsible for, where the estimated cost is no more than £250.

The prescribed periods

Different qualifying repairs carry different deadlines, and the schedule is more specific than most people expect.

• 1 working day: total loss of electric power, water or gas; unsafe electrical fittings; blocked drains; leaking pipes; and loss of heating between October and May.
• 3 working days: partial loss of power or water; blocked sinks; loose banisters; and loss of heating between April and November.
• 7 working days: leaking roofs, door entryphones and extractor fans.

The seasonal split on heating is worth noticing — the same defect carries a different statutory deadline depending on the time of year, which is the legislature doing explicitly what the reasonable-time test does implicitly.

What happens if the council misses it

The scheme carries its own escalation. If the first contractor does not finish in time, you can require the council to instruct a second. If that one also fails within the further period, compensation becomes payable — calculated as the lesser of £50 and £10 plus £2 for each additional day.

It is deliberately narrow

A £10,000 structural repair does not become a Right to Repair job because it is urgent. The scheme depends on being a secure council tenant, on the council being responsible, on the repair being one of the listed qualifying repairs, and on the cost falling within the limit. Where it does not apply, the ordinary obligations still do.

Where the two hard clocks leave you

Most of this page has one unavoidable answer: it depends on what was reasonable in the circumstances. Two schemes give sharper ones.

Awaab’s Law fixes investigation and safety-work deadlines for qualifying social-housing hazards. The Right to Repair Regulations prescribe completion periods, a second-contractor mechanism and compensation for small urgent repairs in secure council tenancies. Neither abolishes the ordinary repairing duties — they sit on top of them.

Common arguments, and what to ask

“The part will take three weeks.”

Possibly true and possibly relevant. When was it ordered? Is the home safe meanwhile? Is an alternative component available? Has temporary heating or protection been offered? The final repair taking three weeks does not make doing nothing for three weeks reasonable.

“We’re waiting for planned works.”

A scheduled roof or window programme can make a temporary repair reasonable in the meantime. It cannot justify leaving someone unsafe, without essential facilities, or exposed to continuing damage for an excessive period. Ask what was done meanwhile.

“The freeholder has to consent.”

Relevant, not conclusive. Did they request consent promptly, chase it, explain the delay and explore temporary measures — or say “that’s the freeholder’s problem” and stop?

“The work is too expensive.”

Cost is part of the practical background for complex work. It is not an answer to a statutory repairing obligation. The question is what the law required and what was reasonable, not what the landlord would have preferred to spend.

“The contractor attended three times.”

Attendance is relevant. So is outcome. If the same defect survived all three visits, the chronology showing that is worth more than the visits are.

“You refused access.”

One missed appointment is not six months of refusal. Keep every offer, cancellation, no-show and alternative date you proposed — this is the argument that record exists for.