How do I organise tenant maintenance requests? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
The problem is not receiving the request but tracking it. A request arriving as a call or a message gets lost, then returns as a complaint. The system gives every request a number, a status, an owner and a date, notifies the tenant automatically on each status change, and flags your team on anything past the agreed response time. The unexpected benefit: a cumulative record showing which units consume disproportionate maintenance.
The minimum for a system that works: a number per request, a status from four (received, in progress, completed, declined with a reason), one named owner, and a received date and a due date. Those four are enough to turn complaints into trackable work. The tenant is notified automatically on each status change — and that alone measurably cuts the repeat “what happened to my request?” calls.
The unexpected benefit comes from the cumulative record after a few months: you find which units consume disproportionate maintenance, which fault types recur, and which contractor overruns response times. Those are three negotiating facts in your hands — when renewing a contractor, when pricing the rent on a unit that costs you more than others, or when deciding to replace rather than keep repairing.
- The minimum: a number, one of four statuses, a named owner, two dates
- Automatic tenant notification on every status change
- An alert to your team on anything past the agreed response time
- The cumulative record exposes your costliest units and contractors