One account for the repair, the date it was owed by, and the rate it is billed at.
Responsive repairs, voids, planned programmes and the landlord compliance underneath all three, run for housing associations, councils and managing agents from one account. Work measured against your own schedule of rates, the attendance timed at the property rather than written up on Friday, the certificate filed against the address it belongs to, and the application built from what was actually recorded. 30+ modules on one account, and a repairs contractor turns on the handful it needs.
From the call at eight o'clock to the application at month end.
The work is a tap, a board, a boiler or a whole empty flat. The record it has to leave behind is the same every time.
Fixing the fault is the part a repairs contractor already has right. What decides whether the contract survives its review is everything wrapped around it: whether the visit happened inside the timescale, whether anybody can prove it happened at all, which rate it was measured at, what the operative found while they were in there, and whether the landlord can produce the certificate when their regulator asks for it.
Unibuild is bespoke business software for UK trades and specialist contractors, built inside a contracting business rather than sold into one. One account carries the property and asset registers, competence and screening records, documents and certificates, van stock, measured work at your own rates, variations and applications for payment.
What housing repairs requires, and what Unibuild provides.
A repairs contract and a construction contract look alike in a database. They stop looking alike at the front door, at the timescale and at the measure. Each requirement below is followed by what the platform does about it.
The tradeThe platform
Priced long before it happened
You do not quote the work, you measure it
Almost nothing in a repairs contract is priced when it is ordered. The rate was agreed at tender, and the job is the act of matching what was done to a code somebody wrote years ago.
The M3NHF Schedule of Rates is the sector standard, used by over six hundred social landlords
Version eight carries composite and elemental descriptions, each of them already priced
Standard minute values sit against the codes, so labour is a known quantity before the van moves
Your contract applies its own uplift, and voids are measured differently from responsive work
Your schedule loaded as a price list, and the measure signed off against it
Rate valuations holds measured work against your own rates with caps and client sign off, which is the same shape as a schedule of rates applied to a repair. Advanced estimating carries the price lists and the fit times behind it, so the labour a code assumes is in the system rather than in somebody's head.
Every order arrives with a timescale attached, and since October 2025 some of those timescales are statutory rather than contractual.
Awaab's Law came into force on 27 October 2025 for damp and mould and every emergency hazard in social housing
A reported damp and mould hazard is investigated within ten working days
The resident gets a written summary within three working days of the investigation ending
Work to make the home safe is completed within five further working days, and an emergency hazard is made safe within twenty four hours
Phase 2, due on 30 November 2026, adds cold, heat, falls, fire, electrical, structural and hygiene hazards
Dates watched overnight, and a diary that proves the visit happened
Reminders and expiry watches every date you set against a property or an order and turns amber before it passes rather than after. The site diary carries the photographs and the notes made at the address, so the evidence that a timescale was met is created at the door instead of reconstructed in an audit. A hazard found on any visit goes to the office as an Awaab’s Law hazard report, with photographs.
An occupied home is not a site. The operative is a guest with a legal right of entry they would rather not use, and the appointment is the product.
A missed appointment costs a whole visit and lands in the landlord's satisfaction figures
Operatives working in homes are commonly screened, and the screening is renewed on its own clock
Lone working, safeguarding and vulnerability all sit on top of the trade competence
No access has to be recorded as a fact with a time on it, or it becomes your fault at the review
The attendance timed at the scan, and every screening date on the person
QR clock in timesheets put the attendance against the property and time it at the scan rather than accepting what was typed in later, so a no access is a timed record instead of an argument. The training matrix holds screening, trade tickets and cards against the person, each with its own expiry.
A repairs firm runs a stores operation spread across a fleet, and the difference between one visit and two is usually a five pound part.
Stock lives in vans parked at drivers' homes across a county
Materials are consumed against an address rather than against a job number
Voids swallow materials in a fortnight and then the property is gone
A depot count taken on a Friday describes vans that have been elsewhere all week
Each van as its own stock location, counted as the part is fitted
Assets and inventory treats every vehicle as a stock location, so a part leaves the van it was actually fitted from and the replenishment list is built from movements rather than from an estimate. Purchase orders carries the orders, the supplier invoices and the credits behind it.
You are paid for what was recorded, not for what was done
A month of repairs is several thousand small values rather than one big one, and every line that was not written down is simply lost.
Extras found on the visit are the margin, and they die in a notebook
Labour only teams and specialist subcontractors sit under the same contract
The Construction Industry Scheme runs through most of the subcontract spend
Nobody queries an application line by line until the month it is disputed
The application built from the records rather than typed over them
Applications for payment builds from the measured work, the variations and the day works already captured, and holds the retention and the ageing behind it. Subcontractor management keeps the orders, insurances and scheme treatment per subcontractor, and cost control shows the committed and actual cost per contract.
Counted in the deployment Unibuild was built on, July 2026: one expiry page carrying 376 assets, 141 subcontractor certificates, 84 accreditations, 80 health assessments, 55 instruments and 9 vehicles.
Responsive repairs
Voids
Planned programmes
Landlord compliance
Van stock
Plant and access
Vehicles
Records and certificates
The week
An ordinary week in a repairs firm, and the record it leaves.
Six entries from the day book. Nothing here asks an operative to remember an address until Friday.
Monday, the board
The week's orders come off the system with their timescales attached: emergencies today, the damp and mould inspections inside their ten working days, two voids with a handover date and a stair of communal door checks that fell due this month.
Sorted by the date owed
Tuesday, at the door
The operative scans in at the property and the arrival is timed at the scan. The photographs of the leak, the section of ceiling taken down and the finished repair are written against that address before they leave the street.
Timed and photographed
The no access
Nobody in at the second address. The visit is recorded with its time, the card photographed on the mat, and the order goes back for a further appointment with the evidence already attached to it.
Recorded, not argued
Wednesday, the void
An empty flat is measured against the void schedule as the work is done rather than in an office afterwards. Extra work found behind the bath is priced from the same schedule and added as a variation the surveyor can see the photograph of.
Measured where it happened
Thursday, the annual visit
A gas service falls due on nine properties in the same postcode. Each one carries its own appliance record and its own last certificate, and the new certificate is filed against the address rather than into a folder named after the year.
Against the right property
Friday, the application
The month's application is built from the measured work, the variations and the day works already in the system, with the subcontract deductions and the retention worked out underneath it rather than in a spreadsheet beside it.
Built from the record
The requirements
Eight things repairs software has to do.
Written as requirements rather than as features, so they can be read against whatever you are using now.
The property is the record, not the job
An address is visited for twenty years by a dozen trades, so the history has to belong to the property rather than to a sequence of unrelated orders. The asset register holds each dwelling with its appliances, their manufacturer, model, serial and install date, and the whole service history sits under the address where the next operative can read it.
Work measured against a schedule you already own
Repairs are priced from a schedule of rates rather than quoted, so the system has to hold your rates and let the measure be made against them on site. Rate valuations holds the price list, the measured work, the caps and the client sign off, which is the shape of a schedule of rates contract whichever schedule you are on.
A timescale on every order, watched by something that does not sleep
Emergency, urgent, routine, statutory: the timescale is the contract. Reminders and expiry runs overnight across every date held in the account and raises the ones approaching, which is the only version of this that works when the list runs to thousands of open orders.
Attendance proved rather than asserted
QR clock in puts the operative at the property with a clock-in time and a scan within 100 metres, so the arrival time on a statutory repair is evidence rather than recollection. This is the single record that settles most disputes about whether a timescale was met.
Screening and competence held per person, with dates
Working in an occupied home usually requires screening on top of the trade ticket, and both expire. The training matrix holds each card, ticket and screening date against the person with its own expiry, colouring before it lapses rather than after, so an operative is never sent to a property they are not clear to attend.
Van stock counted where it is consumed
Each vehicle is its own stock location and the part comes off the van it was fitted from at the moment it is fitted. A repairs business that orders materials per job rather than per van is running a stores operation it cannot see. Related: stock control for contractors.
The certificate attached to the address it certifies
Gas records, electrical reports, fire risk actions, asbestos surveys and water hygiene records belong to the property, and the landlord will be asked for them by their regulator rather than by you. Documents and certificates keeps every revision against the address, so the version issued in March survives the one issued in October.
A month end built from the week, not from memory
Several thousand small values only add up if they were captured where they happened. Applications for payment assembles from measured work and variations already recorded, and cost control sets the committed and actual cost against the contract while there is still time to do something about it.
The van and the stock
What a housing repairs firm holds
Written for the trade rather than for any one firm. Most firms will recognise nine or ten of these lines and ignore the rest.
What a UK housing repairs and maintenance contractor holds, and the tracking quirk in each line
Key
Category
Typical items
The tracking quirk
The dwellings
Houses, flats, bungalows, bedsits, sheltered units, leasehold properties inside the same block
The unit of work is an address rather than a site, and one block can hold three tenures with three different sets of obligations
The only category with no physical existence and the one an inspection is actually about, so it is the one worth systemising first
Regulations
The regimes a housing repairs firm works under
Most of these duties belong to the landlord rather than to you, and every one of them is discharged with a record your people made. This is the reference version, kept factual.
The regimes a UK housing repairs and maintenance contractor works under, and what each requires
Regime
What it requires
Section 11, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985
The repairing obligation that creates the market. In almost every tenancy of under seven years the landlord must keep the structure and exterior in repair, along with the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, space heating and water heating. It is implied into the tenancy and cannot be contracted out of, which is why a repairs service exists at all and why the response is judged against what is reasonable rather than against what is convenient.
Awaab's Law, from 27 October 2025
Introduced by the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 and brought into force for damp and mould in social housing. A reported damp and mould hazard is investigated within ten working days, the resident receives a written summary of the findings within three working days of the investigation concluding, and work to make the home safe is completed within five further working days. An emergency hazard is investigated and made safe within twenty four hours. Phase 2, due on 30 November 2026, adds excess cold and heat, falls, fire, electrical, structural and hygiene hazards, so the answer has to be a system rather than a spreadsheet built for one hazard. See Awaab’s Law hazard reporting.
Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018
Makes fitness an implied term of the tenancy and gives the tenant a direct route to court, rather than relying on the local authority to act. Fitness is assessed against the hazards in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, which is the same hazard framework Awaab's Law extends from, so the two read together rather than separately.
The right to repair scheme
For secure council tenants, a list of qualifying small repairs with prescribed timescales of one, three or seven working days, a right to have a second contractor instructed if the first does not attend, and compensation payable when it is not done. It is narrower than most people assume, and the operational point is that some of your order types carry a statutory clock and others carry a contractual one, in the same working day.
Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
The landlord must have every gas appliance and flue checked for safety at intervals of no more than twelve months by a Gas Safe registered engineer, keep the record, and give a copy to the tenant. Each record is kept until two further checks have been made. The annual visit is the most access dependent job in the calendar, which is why the no access procedure is a compliance process rather than an administrative one.
Electrical safety and alarms
Fixed electrical installations are inspected and tested periodically, with the report and its remedial actions forming the evidence rather than the inspection alone. Separately, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm regulations require working smoke alarms on every storey and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fixed combustion appliance other than a gas cooker, tested at the start of a tenancy and repaired or replaced when a tenant reports a fault.
Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and the Building Safety Act 2022
In blocks of flats above eleven metres the responsible person carries out quarterly checks of communal fire doors and annual checks of flat entrance doors, on a best endeavours basis for the latter. Higher risk buildings above eighteen metres or seven storeys carry the golden thread: information about the building kept accurate, current and handed on. For a contractor this converts door and compartmentation work from a job into a record with a lineage. See fire doors and fire assets.
Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
The duty to manage asbestos in the common parts sits with whoever controls them. Before work starts the contractor needs the survey information, and anybody liable to disturb asbestos needs suitable information, instruction and training refreshed at appropriate intervals. In stock built before 2000 this is a daily consideration in kitchens, airing cupboards and ceilings rather than an occasional one. See asbestos removal contractors.
Legionella and ACOP L8
Water systems in communal and sheltered settings carry a written risk assessment naming control measures with frequencies: temperature checks, flushing of little used outlets, tank inspections and records of each. Void properties are the classic failure, because an empty flat is a stagnant system, and the flushing record on a void is one of the easiest things in the sector to lose.
Consumer standards and satisfaction measures
Social landlords report annually against tenant satisfaction measures, several of which are yours in practice rather than theirs: repairs completed right first time, the time taken to complete repairs, and satisfaction with the repairs service. They are published and they are compared, so the measurement of your work is now public in a way it was not before 2023.
CDM 2015 and the Construction Industry Scheme
Planned programmes and void refurbishments are construction work with the duties to plan, manage and monitor that go with them, and a domestic client's duties usually pass to the contractor. Most subcontract payments in repairs fall inside the Construction Industry Scheme, so the verification, the deduction and the monthly return run alongside the work. See the CDM 2015 guide and the CIS guide.
Questions
Questions housing repairs firms ask
The ones that come up on the first call, answered plainly.
Awaab's LawDoes it help us meet Awaab's Law and the other statutory timescales?+
Yes, on the parts a contractor controls. An engineer who finds a hazard makes an Awaab’s Law hazard report in the app, with photographs, and the office is alerted at once. The completed report goes to the landlord as a PDF or on your client portal. Reminders and expiry watches every date overnight and raises it before it passes. The attendance is scanned at the property and timed at the scan, not typed in afterwards. The statutory judgements and the resident's written summary stay with the landlord.
No accessHow does it handle a missed appointment?+
As a timed record with evidence attached, not a status somebody set later. The operative scans at the property, so the visit exists even though the work did not, and a photograph of the card on the mat sits with it. The order goes back for a further appointment with that evidence already attached, which is what settles whose failure a missed timescale was.
ComplianceCan it hold gas, electrical and fire dates across thousands of properties?+
Yes. The planned pattern is held on the item as twelve month columns carrying what is due each month. It reads as a grid across the whole register and exports filtered to one contract or one block. It moves with the equipment when boilers are replaced and alarms are swapped mid contract. Communal and flat entrance fire doors run on their own rounds in fire doors and fire assets.
CertificatesHow are landlord gas safety records held?+
As documents against the property with every revision kept, so the version issued in March survives the one issued in October. The visit record is structured: date, work type, operative, comments and photographs against the specific address and appliance. A structured record to your own contract's form is built for you, inside the monthly fee.
DisrepairDoes it help defend disrepair claims?+
Yes. A disrepair claim is decided on what can be evidenced about visits, dates and condition, often two or three years after the fact. A property record carries every attendance with its clock-in time, the photographs taken on the day and the documents issued afterwards. That is a far stronger position than a folder of job sheets.
RatesCan it hold a schedule of rates?+
Yes. Rate valuations holds your rates as a price list, and work is measured against them on site with caps and client sign off, whatever uplift your contract applies. The M3NHF schedule is licensed to its users, so the codes and prices you are contracted at are loaded as your own price list. Advanced Estimating carries the fit times behind each code.
VoidsDoes it do voids as well as responsive?+
Yes. A void is a small project with a handover date, a measure, a materials bill and compliance certificates that all land before the property is let. The work is measured against the void schedule as it is done, and extras behind the bath are added as variations with photographs. The cost lands against the address before it closes.
ScreeningCan it track screening and safeguarding renewals?+
Yes, separately from trade competence. An operative can be current on gas and overdue on a screening renewal in the same week. Each check, card and ticket has its own expiry against the person on the training matrix, and the grid colours before a date passes. The crew planner reads the same account.
The clientCan the landlord see the records themselves?+
Yes. The client portal is scoped to their own organisation and assigned properties, with the records read only. They open a property and read its history with the photographs and certificates, at any hour, without ringing your office. At a contract review, and at a regulatory inspection, that history is usually the strongest argument in the room.
Housing systemHow does it sit alongside the landlord's housing system?+
Side by side. Tenancies, rent accounts and allocations belong to the landlord and stay in the housing management system. Unibuild runs the contractor's side: the asset register, the measured work, the attendance and the certificates. A council with a direct labour organisation runs the two together.
SchedulingWill it plan the operatives' days for us?+
Yes. The labour run plans the week and shows who is where, and the week's orders come off with their timescales attached, sorted by the date owed. The fatigue record watches the hours on a standby rota.
The marketWhat software do UK housing repairs contractors use?+
Usually a repairs package for the order and the appointment, the landlord's housing system pushing orders into it, a spreadsheet for screening and van stock, and an accounts package. Unibuild holds the contracting business: property and asset registers, measured work at your rates, competence and screening, certificates, van stock, variations and applications for payment.
PricingWe are forty people. Is this proportionate?+
Yes. One monthly figure covers everything, with unlimited users and no charge per property, per order or per visit. It is sized to the firm when it is quoted and fixed for three years, and taking on more people never changes the fee.
RolloutWhere do most firms start?+
With one contract and its compliance register, because the properties, their dates, the visits and the certificates show the arithmetic most clearly. Van stock usually follows, then the measure and the application, then planned programmes. Most firms go live in about two weeks, in phases, and migration of your property, asset and people records is done for you.
Awaab's Law phase 2 hazards: what an engineer should reportFrom 30 November 2026, cold homes, falls, fire, electrical, structural and hygiene hazards join damp and mould on Awaab's Law timescales. Each hazard, what an engineer looks for, and the government's own examples of emergency and significant cases.10 min read
Snagging, and the list that decides when a job endsThe difference between a snag and a defect is who pays for it. How the list gets made, why it grows after handover, and what closes it out for good.7 min read
Free RAMS templates
RAMS for this work, already filled in.
Risk assessments and method statements pre-filled for the work this trade does, free in PDF and Word, each with the law and a toolbox talk.
Half an hour, on your own properties and your own rates. Bring one contract with its compliance register and a week of orders, and we will set the register and its twelve month pattern up in front of you. Unlimited users, never per seat, and fourteen days to try it without a card.
