ABSTRACT
The urgency for future action will have been determined initially by the housing manager as part of the report (see Chapter 6). The action could be the execution of repairs or it could be further investigation or guidance. As seen in Chapter 5, there will be many occasions where accurate diagnosis of the cause of a defect, and consequently the specification of the repair required, will either be beyond the competence of the housing manager or not possible at the time of initial inspection. Housing managers are not engineers, surveyors or architects and are unlikely to possess sufficient technical skills to diagnose all defects fully. An inaccurate diagnosis could increase the liability of the landlord and confuse issues. It is essential that housing managers take a realistic and modest view of their technical skills and that there is sufficient technical backup available to them where this is required.
