While evening and weekend property viewings are nothing new for letting agents, tenant maintenance is also increasingly stretching beyond the traditional working day.

New data from Lettie shows tenants logged half of all maintenance cases outside Monday-to-Friday, 9am-to-5pm office hours over the summer.

Some 17.4% of reports arrived at weekends, adding to the out-of-hours workload facing agents and property managers.

The figures cover cases logged between 1 June and 31 August 2026. Lettie’s maintenance system supports more than 10,000 tenants.

Hot-water problems surge after hours

The trend is even stronger for heating and hot-water problems.

Tenants reported 73.1% of heating and hot-water cases outside normal office hours.

For problems involving a loss of hot water, the figure rose to 73.7%.

Urgent problems also often emerged after hours. Tenants reported 57.5% of High or Emergency cases outside weekday office hours.

Connor Hawkins, chief solutions officer at Lettie, said: “Anyone working in property management knows that maintenance does not stop at 5pm, but the scale of the out-of-hours demand is striking.

“When half of maintenance cases are first reported outside the traditional working day – and almost three-quarters of hot-water disruptions arrive out of hours – this cannot really be treated as an occasional exception.

“For landlords and letting agents, the challenge is having an effective way to capture the problem, understand its urgency and decide what needs to happen next, regardless of when the tenant reports it.”

Plumbing tops the list

Plumbing and drainage made up the largest share of reports over the summer, at 21.6%.

Doors, windows and access followed at 12.8%. Heating and hot water made up 11.9%, while appliances and ventilation stood at 11.5%.

Damp and building problems accounted for 9.2%. Electrical and lighting issues made up 8.7%, as did fittings and furniture.

Together, plumbing and drainage and heating and hot water accounted for 33.5% of all cases.

Repeat problems add to workload

At least 12.4% of cases showed signs of an earlier or repeat problem.

These included earlier reports, repeat symptoms, past repair attempts and follow-up work.

Electrical and lighting had the highest rate at 26.3%. Damp and building problems followed at 25%.

Heating and hot-water cases stood at 15.4%. The figure rose to 21.1% for reports involving a loss of hot water.

Lettie said the figures do not show a contractor failure rate. Instead, they highlight the need to know the history of a maintenance problem.

Hawkins added: “The data also shows why maintenance is about more than simply receiving a message and arranging a repair.

“A meaningful proportion of issues have some previous history attached to them. Understanding whether something has happened before, whether an earlier repair was attempted or whether symptoms are recurring can materially affect what the right next step should be.

“As property portfolios become larger, maintaining that context becomes increasingly important.”

The figures highlight a growing challenge for letting agents and property managers. Tenant maintenance does not follow office hours, and some of the most pressing problems arise during evenings, nights and weekends.