Ask any letting agent what actually eats their week and the answer is rarely the repairs themselves - it is the chasing. UK property managers get repairs quoted, done and signed off every day, but too often each stage runs on phone tag: three voicemails to get a price, two more calls to pin down a start date, and a final round of ringing to find out whether the job ever finished. None of that is inevitable. It is the by-product of vague job reports, quoting one contractor at a time and having no agreed standard for completion. Fix those three things and the phone goes quiet. Here is how to do it.
Why repair jobs turn into phone chases
Almost every chase call traces back to missing information earlier in the job. The tenant reported a leak but not where it is or how bad. The contractor was asked to have a look rather than given a scope, so the price arrives as a range, verbally, on a call you now have to write up. Nobody agreed what done means, so you ring the tenant, then the contractor, then the tenant again. Each gap you leave at the start of a job gets filled later with a phone call - usually several, usually at the worst time. The system below is really just a set of habits for closing those gaps before the job goes out, so the information flows in writing without you pulling it out of people.
How to get repairs quoted without ringing round
The quoting stage is where most of the wasted calls live, and it is also the easiest stage to fix, because you control everything that goes into it.
Write a spec a contractor can price from a phone screen
A good contractor can price most routine repairs remotely if you give them enough to work with. Before any job goes out, capture:
- What is wrong, specifically - not boiler broken but boiler fires up then cuts out after two minutes, pressure gauge reads low.
- Photos or a short video from the tenant. Two clear photos remove more ambiguity than three phone calls.
- Location within the property - which room, which floor, internal or external.
- Property details - age and type of building, because a Victorian terrace and a 2010 flat are different jobs.
- Access arrangements - tenant working from home, keys held at branch, concierge, or appointment only.
- Any relevant history - if the same fault was patched six months ago, say so.
- Your constraints - budget ceiling for pre-approved works, and whether landlord approval is needed above it.
Established maintenance firms such as Simpled Services in London will tell you the jobs that run smoothly are almost always the ones that arrived with photos and a clear scope attached. The jobs that drag are the ones that started as a one-line email.
Send the job to several contractors at once
Quoting serially - ring one contractor, wait, chase, give up, ring the next - is where whole weeks disappear. Send the same written spec to two or three suitable contractors simultaneously and let the prices come back in parallel. Platforms like Planajob are built around exactly this: you raise the job once and compare quotes from vetted contractors side by side, rather than reconstructing verbal prices from your call notes. However you do it, the principle is the same: one written spec, multiple recipients, prices in writing.
Set a quote deadline and say what happens after it
Tell contractors when you need the price by - quotes by Thursday 5pm, instructing Friday is perfectly reasonable for routine work. Contractors respond well to deadlines because it tells them the job is real and moving. Open-ended requests drift to the bottom of everyone's pile, and then you are back on the phone.
Keeping the job moving once it is instructed
Getting repairs quoted quickly is only half the battle. Jobs stall mid-flight for two predictable reasons: access and scope creep.
Sort access before you confirm a start date
More repair days are lost to failed access than to bad workmanship. Before you confirm a date with the contractor, confirm it with the tenant in writing, and give the contractor a direct way to reach the tenant if your management agreement and the tenant allow it. If keys are held at branch, say where and when they can be collected. A contractor standing outside a locked door generates at least four phone calls and a wasted call-out.
Put variations in writing, however small
Half of repairs uncover something once the panel comes off. Agree upfront how variations work: the contractor sends a photo, a one-line description of the extra work and a price, and waits for written approval before proceeding. This protects both sides. The contractor is not working at risk, you are not arguing about an invoice that grew by a third, and the landlord has a paper trail. Verbal go-aheads on site are how disputes start.
Sign-off without visiting every property
You cannot inspect every completed repair in person, and you do not need to. What you need is a completion standard that every contractor on your list understands before they start.
The completion evidence to ask for
Make this part of your standard instruction, not a favour you request afterwards:
- Before and after photos of the repair itself, not just the general area.
- A one-line description of what was actually done, especially if it differed from the quote.
- Certificates where the work requires them - gas and electrical work must be done by appropriately registered engineers under current safety rules, and the paperwork belongs in the property file.
- Confirmation the tenant was left in a working state - water back on, heating running, area left tidy.
With that pack in hand, you can sign off remotely, update the landlord and close the job the same day the contractor finishes. No drive-by inspection, no did it get done call.
Pay promptly - it is your best retention tool
The fastest way to lose your reliable contractors is to be slow with money. Trades talk to each other constantly - communities like Contractor Club exist precisely because contractors compare notes on which clients are worth working for. Agents who pay on time get their calls answered first, their emergency jobs prioritised and their quotes returned quickly. Agents who pay at ninety days end up chasing by phone, because the good contractors have quietly stopped prioritising them.
Build it once, reuse it for every job
None of the above requires new software, but it does require templates: a job report form the tenant or your team completes, a standard instruction email that includes your variation and completion rules, and a completion checklist. Write them once and every job thereafter starts from a stronger position. If you are managing at any scale, it is worth putting the whole flow - spec, quotes, instruction, evidence, sign-off - in one place; that is the workflow Planajob was built for property managers to run end to end, and there are more practical guides on the Planajob blog covering individual stages in more depth. The measure of success is simple: a routine repair should be able to go from tenant report to signed-off completion without a single chase call from you.
FAQ
How many quotes should I get for a routine repair?
Two or three is the practical sweet spot for most routine work. One quote gives you no benchmark; five slows everything down and wastes contractors' time, which they remember. For small, pre-approved jobs under your delegated spend limit, a single trusted contractor at an agreed rate is often faster and perfectly defensible - just review those rates periodically.
What counts as proof a repair is finished?
At minimum: after photos of the completed work, a short written description of what was done, any certificates the work legally requires, and ideally a line from the tenant confirming the problem is resolved. Together those let you close the job, update the landlord and release payment without a site visit.
Do I still need to phone contractors at all?
Sometimes, and that is fine - a two-minute call to clarify a genuinely ambiguous fault can save a wasted visit. The goal is not to eliminate phone calls but to eliminate chasing: calls whose only purpose is extracting information that should have been in writing from the start. Keep the calls that add value, and design the routine ones out of your process.