Scope: England and Wales. The repairing covenant applies in both; Wales adds its own fitness duty — see repairs and hazards in Wales. Verified against the legislation on 10 August 2026.
A boiler failure is the repair most likely to escalate, because the thing that makes it urgent is not the boiler. It is the temperature.
It is unambiguously yours
Space heating and water heating installations are expressly within section 11, and the covenant cannot be contracted out of. There is no version of the tenancy agreement that makes the boiler the tenant's problem.
How quickly?
Section 11 requires repair within a reasonable time of notice, and reasonable is a function of severity rather than a fixed number. A boiler failure in July and the same failure in January are not the same repair.
Two things sharpen it:
- Excess cold is a category 1 hazard under the HHSRS. Once a home is genuinely cold, the council can act under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004 regardless of how reasonable you consider your timescale — see improvement notices.
- Awaab's Law sets fixed timescales for prescribed hazards, which is a hard deadline rather than a reasonableness test. See Awaab's Law in the private sector for which hazards and what clock.
The practical standard: acknowledge the same day, get an engineer to it within a day or two, and if the fix will take longer, provide temporary heating in the meantime.
Temporary heating is the thing that defuses it
Delivering oil-filled radiators the same afternoon converts an emergency into an inconvenience, and it does so before anyone involves the council. It is also evidence: it shows you treated the loss of heating as urgent, which is the exact question a tribunal or an environmental health officer will ask.
Two cautions. Offer electric heaters, and be aware the tenant's electricity bill rises — a contribution is not legally required but is frequently the difference between a resolved complaint and a formal one. And do not supply second-hand gas or paraffin heaters; the fire and carbon monoxide risk is yours to have created.
Only a Gas Safe engineer
Work on a gas boiler must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Not a plumber, not a handyman, not you. See finding and verifying a Gas Safe engineer, and note that a repair does not replace the annual Gas Safety Record — the twelve-month cycle continues regardless.
If the engineer condemns it
An engineer who finds the appliance Immediately Dangerous will disconnect it with your permission and issue a warning notice. At that point you have a property with no heating and no hot water, and the timescale question becomes acute rather than theoretical. Replacement is a revenue or capital question for tax, but that is a decision for afterwards, not for the week the tenant is cold.
Run the free compliance check to see what else is due.