A survey claims to show that 57% of landlords do not have out-of-hours management cover, despite 80% of maintenance calls coming out-of-hours.

The research has been commissioned by a provider of out-of-hours services.

Adiuvo’s surveyedlandlords to see what proportion of the market currently has out-of-hours property management cover in place, and found that only one third (33%) have full, comprehensive cover, and 10% have partial cover limited to certain hours of the day.

This leaves 57% who have no cover at all.

Among those who do have some sort of out-of-hours cover, 61% receive it from their managing or letting agent, 34% have an agreement with a personal contractor, and just 6% make use of a specialist out-of-hours service provider.

As for those landlords who don’t have any cover, when asked why, the most common answer (59%) was that they prefer to handle issues themselves.

A further 29% simply don’t think out-of-hours cover is necessary, 12% say it’s too expensive, and 2% say they haven’t been able to find a decent provider.

In 2024, Adiuvo says it handled almost 226,000 property management and maintenance calls, a staggering 183,752 of which came out-of-hours*. This means landlords without cover risk missing 81.3% of all calls coming in from their tenants, any number of which could be serious emergencies that require immediate attention.

A spokesperson comments: “Even just a small problem, such as a minor leak, can quickly become a major issue if not addressed quickly. And to avoid this, any landlord without cover is having to drag themselves out of bed or away from their family to deal with the situation.”