Responsibilities and costs

You're responsible for most minor repairs and maintenance to your home, including:

• electric plugs, fuses and light bulbs
• inside doors, cupboards and handles
• catches and locks
• toilet seats
• broken glass inside your home
• floor tiles
• small cracks in plaster
• decorations
• gardens (including gates, fences, trees, window boxes)

If you want to improve your property at your own cost, like installing a new kitchen or extra sockets, you must get our permission first. 

Email repairs@southwark.gov.uk to request permission.

We're responsible for repairs to the structure, exterior and essential services to your home. These include:

• roofs
• foundations
• external doors, walls and windows
• drains, gutters and outside pipes
• chimneys and stacks (you're responsible for sweeping chimneys)
• brickworks
• major plastering repairs
• floors and ceilings
• installations for water, electricity and gas (including wiring, sockets, fittings, internal pipes and valves)