Emergency Boiler Repair in Thamesmead & Erith Marshes (DA18)

The 2021 Census found 60.5% of DA18 households renting from a social landlord. No other DA district on our list comes close: the next highest is less than half that. Another 14.2% rent privately, and about one household in four owns its home. On a cold morning those are three different starting points. A social tenant reports to the council or the housing association, and for an emergency hazard the law now puts a timescale behind that report. A private tenant reports to the landlord or the letting agent, and there is a legal duty behind it but no fixed clock. An owner, including a leaseholder who bought the flat, deals with the boiler directly. That 14.2% is the group the newest rule leaves out, because Awaab’s Law does not yet apply to private renting. It helps to know which group you are in before the heating goes, because the repairs line for a housing association, the number for a letting agent and ours are three different numbers, and the first two should be somewhere in your tenancy paperwork. The tenancy is what differs from door to door here, and it decides the first phone call more than the fault does.

Tenants ring the landlord. Owners ring us.

Rented boilers and the landlord’s duty

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The legal starting point is the same for social and private tenants. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 makes a landlord keep the installations for heating the home and heating water in repair and proper working order, on a tenancy of under seven years. The duty starts when the landlord has notice of the problem, which is why the report matters more than anything else you do that day. If you cannot get through, keep a note of each attempt and when it was. Once it starts, the repair must follow in a reasonable time, which the law does not define. Social tenants then have something private tenants do not. Awaab’s Law, in force since 27 October 2025 for social housing only, gives a social landlord twenty-four hours to investigate an emergency hazard and make it safe. The government’s guidance for social landlords lists a broken boiler as something that could be an emergency hazard, more likely in the colder months. It is not automatic. That twenty-four hours is the law’s timescale, and it binds your landlord, nobody else. Making a boiler safe is not always the same thing as mending it, either, and the duty to repair under section 11 does not end when the hazard has been dealt with.

Put it in writing, even after you have phoned.

Shelter’s advice is to report repairs in writing. Put in the date and time, what the boiler display shows, what the pressure gauge reads, and whether the heating, the hot water or both have gone, and keep a copy. All of that can be read from the front of the boiler without touching anything. Citizens Advice says a tenant should not try to fix the boiler, and that goes for taking the casing off to have a look.

This is general information, not legal advice. Speak to Shelter or Citizens Advice before withholding rent or paying for a repair yourself.

Owners are the simpler case.

If you own your home, outright, with a mortgage, or as a leaseholder who bought the flat, the boiler is normally yours to repair unless the lease says otherwise, and the first call is yours to make.

If the boiler in a flat you own turns out to be past repair, what replaces it is your decision, and we also arrange boiler installations, with a page you can read before choosing who fits it.