A Leith landlord's maintenance year: what to check, and when

The compliance floor comes first

Before anything cosmetic, a private rented property in Scotland has to meet the Repairing Standard. In practice that means the structure and exterior in reasonable repair, installations for water, gas and electricity in proper working order, fixtures and appliances safe, and the alarm requirements met — interlinked smoke alarms in the room used most in the day and in every circulating space, a heat alarm in the kitchen, and a carbon monoxide detector where there is a carbon-fuelled appliance.

Electrical safety inspections and gas safety checks run on their own cycles. Missing a date is a compliance problem before it is a maintenance problem, so those go in the diary first and everything else is scheduled around them.

• Alarms: interlinked smoke and heat detection, plus CO where required.
• Electrical installation condition report and PAT where applicable.
• Annual gas safety check where there is a gas supply.
• HMO properties carry additional licensing conditions from the council.

What Leith buildings do to you specifically

Colony flats have their own external stairs and shared drying greens, and the roof over your flat is rarely only your business. Warehouse and dock conversions bring flat roofs, communal plant and factored blocks where the repair is agreed by someone other than you. Tenements off the Walk are the familiar picture: shared close, shared roof, and a repair bill split between owners.

Salt air near the Shore is not folklore. Exposed metalwork, external doors and window paintwork facing the water need looking at more often than the same items on a sheltered inland street.

Time it around the tenancy, not around the weather

The cheapest time to do work in a rental is the gap between tenancies. Nobody needs to be worked around, decorators can run the whole flat, and a small works list — the sticking door, the tired sealant, the loose handrail — can be cleared in one visit instead of five separate call-outs.

For everything else, the practical rhythm is: gutters and roof checked before winter, heating serviced before it is needed rather than during the first cold snap, and external paintwork inspected in spring while there is time to book the work.

If you do not live nearby

A lot of Leith flats are owned by people who are not in Edinburgh. What tends to fail then is not the repair itself but the evidence — no photographs, no written scope, no record of what was agreed. Ask for photographs of finished work as standard and keep the written quote with them; that file is what protects you in a dispute or at sale.