Housing improvement
During council home upgrades
To make sure your home improvements go smoothly for everyone:
What you need to do
The contractor will tell you when they need to access your home to do the work. Please help us by:
- keeping any appointment they make with you
- giving access to them to do the work
- making sure that you and all members of your household, including children and any visitors, follow any instructions and advice that the contractor gives you including about any warning notices they put up in your home
- keeping all children and pets away from work areas, tools, machinery, site containers and work materials
- not smoking in work areas
- providing tenant feedback if we ask you to take part in a telephone survey
Health and safety
All our staff and contractors carry identity cards. Please check the identity of anyone entering your home. If you have any doubts about the identity of a person trying to enter your home, do not let them in and contact us for advice.
Our staff and our contractors will never ask you to make any payment to them for any reason in connection with your planned upgrade works or to carry out a survey of your home. If you are asked to make a payment, please do not. Immediately contact us and report the incident to the police for investigation.
If there is a gas supply in your home, the contractor may need to turn this off, so there is no risk to you or them during the works. This safely measure can apply during any upgrade. You can be provided with temporary heaters for the time the gas is off.
If you are having internal upgrades, the contractor may also be replacing or fitting new smoke, heat and carbon monoxide (CO) detectors which may require access to your hallways, lounge, kitchen and bedrooms.
Assistance and support
We can offer you assistance and support before, during and on completion of the improvement works:
- The contractor will employ a Tenant Liaison Officer (TLO) to assist with the upgrade process
- Our assistance package will offer extra support to tenants in greatest need, helping you to clear cupboards, pack, unpack and a ‘Handy Person’ service to help get your home straight again - each assistance package will be assessed individually, and a final decision taken once all the details of the particular case are known
- If you are not approved for the Assistance Package and you are having upgrade works carried out or your home is being rewired, the contractor can still offer you free packing boxes to help you pack up before the work starts
- For all upgrade works to the inside of your home, the contractor may offer you short-term day time ‘hospitality facilities’ close to your home but only if it is possible for them to do so
- A Housing Occupational Therapist (OT) can advise if you need any adaptations as part of the upgrade
- We can organise alternative accommodation if your special circumstances mean that you have to move out of your home temporarily
If you want to speak to us to find out more about how this assistance and support could help you, please contact us and ask for the Stock Condition Surveyor for your area.
Claims against the contractor
All upgrades undertaken in your home will involve a level of disruption and disturbance and our contractors will always try to get things right but, there may be times when matters go wrong and you may have to make a claim against them. If this happens you must make any claim directly against the contractor concerned, by contacting their Tenant Liaison Officer, as the council is not responsible for the actions or activities of any contractor even if they are acting on our behalf. If you make any claim to us, we will refer this to the contractor concerned. In the event that no agreement is reached between yourself and the contractor, we may, after we have asked the contractor to explain the reasons why, advise you to pursue the claim through your own insurance or alternatively, seek independent legal advice as to what courses of action are then open to you.
Tenant feedback
It is important that you have the chance to provide feedback in relation to the work that we carry out to your home.
We may contact you by telephone on completion of the work to seek your views. It will be an independent research company that undertakes these telephone surveys. Your feedback will provide us with valuable information and enable us to continually improve the service we offer you.
You can also send feedback directly to our Feedback Team by email at feedback.team@aberdeenshire.gov.uk or by post to:
Feedback Team
Woodhill House
Westburn Road
Aberdeen
AB16 5GB