Repairs and disrepair — Milton Keynes City Council

Before thinking about any legal claim, report the problem and complain. It is free, and it is often the fastest way to get repairs moving. It also creates a written record of what you reported and when — the evidence any claim relies on later.

Report the repair to Mears. The council's repairs are carried out by Mears. Report online through Mears's repairs portal (opens in new tab), call 0330 123 2522, or email repairs.miltonkeynes@mearsgroup.co.uk.^[12] Ask for a repair reference and keep it.

Damp and mould. Report it to Mears in the same way. If you would rather speak to the council, call it on 01908 252937.^[12]

Emergency repairs: phone. Call Mears on 0330 123 2522, which the council says is available 24 hours a day.^[12] If you smell gas, call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 first, then Mears.^[12] For a life-threatening situation, call 999.

Then make a formal complaint if reporting has not fixed it. Use the council's online complaints form (opens in new tab), email complimentsandcomplaints@milton-keynes.gov.uk, or call 01908 253817.^[9] The process has two stages:

• Stage 1 — acknowledged within 5 working days. The council aims to respond within 10 working days of acknowledging it, and may take 10 more for a complex case.^[9]
• Stage 2 — ask within 20 working days of the Stage 1 reply; the council says it may still consider a later request. It aims to respond within 20 working days of acknowledging it, or 30 for a complex case.^[9]

If the complaint doesn't fix it: the Housing Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is free and independent. It will usually expect the council's process to be finished before it formally investigates. It can order the council to carry out repairs, apologise and pay you compensation — and nobody takes a fee or a share of anything it awards you.

Free advice. Shelter and Citizens Advice also offer free housing advice, and a local law centre can tell you whether you qualify for legal aid. For disrepair, legal aid can be available where there is a serious risk to health or safety — though not normally for a compensation-only claim.

Complaining and claiming are not either/or. Complaining first is the right move in almost every case — and if the repairs still don't happen, the record you have built makes any claim stronger, not weaker.

Council tenants have a legal right to a home that's kept in repair. If the council has known about a problem for a while and hasn't sorted it, that failure can be grounds for a disrepair claim — and, separately, grounds to escalate a complaint.

Repairs a landlord is responsible for — "disrepair" in the legal sense — commonly include:

• damp, mould or condensation caused by a defect, such as a leaking roof, a failed gutter or water getting in through a wall
• a leak, whether from the roof, a pipe, or the flat above
• no heating or hot water
• holes or gaps that let pests in
• windows or doors that let in draughts or won't shut properly
• structural problems: cracked walls, sagging ceilings, unsafe floors, or crumbling brickwork that lets water in
• electrical faults.

Four things generally need to be true for a claim against the council to stand up:

1. You're a council tenant of Milton Keynes City Council — a housing association or private tenancy is a claim against that landlord instead.
2. You told your landlord, and it knew. A report to Mears — online, by email or by phone, logged with a repair reference — is what starts the clock; keep a record of every contact.
3. A reasonable amount of time passed without it being fixed. There's no single cut-off, but the council's own published targets (see the FAQ on how long repairs take) are a useful yardstick.
4. The disrepair actually affected you — your health, your belongings, or your ability to use part of your home.

The council's repairs policy makes tenants responsible for some things, such as internal decoration, so check the council's repair responsibilities page (opens in new tab) if you are unsure who should fix something.^[13]

Two separate things sit behind a disrepair claim: forcing the repair itself, and putting a value on what living with it has meant for you. Depending on the facts of your case, a claim can address:

• the outstanding repair — the court can order the council to carry it out;
• the disruption — compensation for the stress and inconvenience of living with an unfixed problem;
• a health impact — such as a respiratory condition that damp or mould has made worse;
• ruined possessions — carpets, furniture, clothes or appliances damaged by leaks, damp or mould;
• space you couldn't use — a room made unsafe or unusable, like a mouldy bedroom or an unusable bathroom.

There's no standard figure, and any adviser who quotes one before seeing your evidence should be treated with caution. What a claim is actually worth turns entirely on the record: what you reported, when, and what the council did next.

First, a few questions. Tell us what the problem is, when you first reported it, how the council responded (or didn't), and what it's meant for your household day to day. Anything you've kept — photos, repair reference numbers, complaint replies — strengthens your answers.

Then, a free written view. We check your situation against the legal tests set out on this page and tell you plainly whether a claim looks realistic, and how strong. There's no charge and no obligation for this step.

If it stacks up, an independent solicitor takes over. Where a case needs legal representation, we're upfront about that before you agree to anything, and hand you to an independent, regulated law firm — not us — to run it: formal notice to the council, usually an independent inspection of the property, and negotiation from there. Court is the exception rather than the rule; most disrepair claims settle beforehand.

Time limits matter. A disrepair claim is normally treated as a contract claim, with a limitation period of six years.^[15] Where part of the claim is for an injury to health — damp-related breathing problems, for instance — that element usually carries a shorter, three-year limit instead.^[15] Don't assume an old problem is out of time without checking. Claims typically run over months, not weeks, so keep reporting the fault and pushing for it to be fixed while any claim is ongoing.