Roofing for Leeds Landlords and Student Lets
We work on rental property across Leeds, including the student lets around Headingley, Hyde Park and Burley. Bigger jobs go into the July and August changeover when the house is empty. You get a photographed survey, a written quote you can budget from, and a record of the work for your compliance file.
Timing work around tenancies
The rental year in Leeds runs to a fixed calendar, and roofing has to fit inside it.
Student tenancies around Headingley, Hyde Park, Burley and Woodhouse overwhelmingly change over in the first week of July. That gives you roughly eight weeks with an empty house before the new group moves in for the start of the academic year. It is the only period when a scaffold can stand across a terraced frontage without a dozen people walking under it every day, and it is when we do most of the re-roofs in LS6.
Those weeks are finite and they are shared with every other landlord in the area. Survey in February or March, agree the quote, and the slot is booked. Leave it until the tenants have gone and you are competing for what is left.
Professional lets and family lets are less seasonal. There the constraint is usually void periods between tenancies, and we can work to a date you set as long as we know far enough ahead.
Access, notice and tenants in place
A landlord has to give at least 24 hours notice in writing before entering a let property, and that includes sending contractors. We work to whatever you agree with the tenants and we confirm dates back to you.
In practice, most repairs happen with people living there. Gutter clearing, slate repairs and flat roof recovers need nobody indoors at all. A survey needs about ten minutes in the loft, which is worth arranging rather than skipping, because the loft tells you more about a roof than the covering does.
Full re-roofs are noisy from early morning for the best part of a week. On an occupied house that is a conversation you need to have with your tenants before it is a conversation about dates.
HMO considerations
If you let to five or more tenants from more than one household, the property needs a mandatory HMO licence from Leeds City Council, and licensed properties get inspected. Leeds also operates an Article 4 direction covering the whole city, which means converting a family home into a small shared house requires planning permission rather than being permitted development.
Two things follow for roof work. First, condition matters to your licence. Damp and mould are assessed under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, and a persistent leak that produces mould in a bedroom is the kind of thing that attracts an improvement notice. Second, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 lets a tenant take a landlord to court directly over a property that is unfit, and damp from a failing roof is squarely in scope.
Acting early on a known roof fault is cheaper than dealing with either.
There is also a point worth knowing about site safety. Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, a landlord having work done on a rental property is a commercial client rather than a domestic one, because the work is connected with a business. That brings client duties. In practice we handle the site arrangements, and we will tell you where a job needs anything formal from you.
What you get for your records
Every job on a rental property produces the same paperwork, and it is built to go straight into your file.
A dated survey with photographs of each fault, which doubles as evidence of the condition before work started.
A written quote listing scaffold, licence, materials, labour and waste separately, so you can budget and so you can show where the money went.
Photographs of the completed work before the scaffold comes down.
An invoice and a written workmanship guarantee with the term stated.
If your accountant needs the invoice split between repair and improvement, ask and we will itemise it that way. Repairs to a let property are generally deductible against rental income while improvements are treated differently, and getting the description right on the paperwork saves an argument later. Check the detail with your own accountant.
Common questions
When should I book summer work on a student let?
Get the survey done in February or March. Tenancies here change over in the first week of July, which leaves about eight weeks of empty house, and every landlord in LS6 wants the same weeks. Quotes agreed in spring hold a slot. Ringing in June usually means waiting until the following summer for anything that needs a scaffold.
Can roof work happen with tenants in the property?
Repairs, gutter work and most flat roofing can. A full re-roof with tenants in place is disruptive and we would rather avoid it, though it can be done where a house cannot be emptied. You need to give tenants at least 24 hours notice in writing for access, and we will work to whatever hours you agree with them.
What do I need documented for an HMO?
Keep a dated record of the condition, the work carried out and who did it. Our photographed survey and written quote cover the first two, and the invoice and guarantee cover the third. That file is what you want in front of you if a tenant reports damp or the council inspects under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System.
Do you deal with the tenants directly?
If you want us to. Many landlords and agents give us a tenant contact so we can arrange access without three way phone calls. We confirm every arrangement back to you in writing, and we never agree extra work with a tenant. Scope changes come to you.
Can you quote several properties at once?
Yes, and it is worth doing if they are close together. Surveying a group of houses in one visit is quicker, and running the jobs consecutively can share a scaffold move or a skip. We price each property separately so you can decide which ones go ahead this year.
Is damp always a roof problem?
No, and we will tell you when it is not. Condensation in a busy student house looks similar to a leak on a bedroom ceiling and gets reported the same way. We check the roof, the gutters and the loft, then say plainly what we found. If the cause is ventilation rather than water ingress, you get that in writing too.