Emergency response
Faults are reported to a desk staffed 24 hours a day and attended by contractors we employ and vet directly. Where a fault cannot be resolved within a reasonable period, we transfer the guest to an equivalent apartment. At no point is the guest asked to arrange or fund a repair.
How a fault is handled
Every report follows the same route, so response does not depend on the hour at which a fault occurs.
What we treat as urgent
Urgent categories are escalated on report, at any hour: water escape or leakage, loss of electrical supply, failure of heating or hot water, failure of a lock or entry system, activation or fault of fire or carbon monoxide detection, and failure of a principal appliance such as the oven, refrigerator or washing machine.
Non-urgent matters — a blown lamp, a slow drain, a cosmetic defect — are logged and attended within the working week, at a time convenient to the guest rather than at ours.
Relocation
Operating a portfolio rather than a single property gives us an option an individual landlord does not have. Where an apartment cannot be made good quickly — a substantial leak, a building-wide utility failure, a fault requiring parts — we move the guest to another apartment of at least equivalent standard in a comparable location, and we bear the cost of doing so.
The alternative, familiar to anyone who has rented conventionally, is remaining in an unusable property while responsibility is established between landlord, agent and insurer. That situation does not arise here, because all three roles sit with us.
Prevention
Emergency response is the last line, not the operating model. Apartments are inspected and serviced on a scheduled cycle, appliances are assessed and replaced on a planned basis rather than at the point of failure, and safety detection is tested and recorded.
Fire safety provision includes interlinked smoke detection, carbon monoxide detection where a fuel-burning appliance is present, and fire doors rated to 30 minutes to the apartment entrance.
Information
A staffed desk, our own contractors, and an equivalent apartment if a fault cannot be resolved.
Emergency response
Urgent faults escalated immediately, contractors we employ and vet directly, and relocation to an equivalent apartment at our cost where a fault cannot be resolved.