Maintenance Request
Synonyms: Repair Request، Work Order، Maintenance Ticket، Service Request
Last updated: 2026-09-25
Short Definition
A maintenance request is a report from a tenant to the owner or property manager about a fault or problem in the unit or building; it is logged with a reference number, date and time, classified by priority, assigned to a technician or contractor and tracked until closed.
Overview
Legal Basis
There is no mandatory official form for maintenance requests, but their legal weight derives from the Civil Transactions Law (Royal Decree M/191 dated 29/11/1444H): Article 419 requires formal notice to the landlord before the tenant can exercise remedies for delayed repairs; Article 430 makes the tenant liable for damage from misuse or negligence; Article 433 obliges the tenant to maintain the premises as custom requires; and Article 434 governs the landlord carrying out necessary repairs after reasonable notice to the tenant. The allocation between basic and consumable maintenance follows Ejar's guidance.
Practical Example
A Riyadh management office running 150 units receives 96 maintenance requests in July, about 70% of them about air-conditioning. It classifies them: 8 emergency (response within 4 hours), 40 urgent (within 24 hours) and 48 routine (within 3 working days). At month-end it finds that urgent requests took an average of 30 hours to close instead of 24, and that 12 requests came from the same 5 units. The office decides to replace the AC units in those five flats under a preventive plan before next summer, adds an on-call technician for peak months, and sends each tenant a closure notice asking them to rate the service.
Common Mistakes
- ✗Accepting reports verbally or by unrecorded calls, so evidence of notice and the report date are lost in a dispute.
- ✗Not prioritising requests, so a cosmetic issue is handled like a water leak.
- ✗Closing a request before the tenant confirms the problem is actually fixed.
- ✗Not recording the cause of the fault on the request, which prevents deciding who bears the cost.
- ✗Ignoring repeat requests from the same unit instead of fixing the root cause.
International Differences
In mature markets maintenance requests are handled through online portals and ticketing systems with clear time metrics, and many jurisdictions require the tenant's notice to the landlord to be in writing before repair-related legal remedies can be used. In the UAE and Turkey written notice is likewise the basis for proving a landlord's failure before the competent bodies. Saudi Arabia follows the same direction through the notice requirement in the Civil Transactions Law, which makes written documentation of maintenance requests a legal necessity rather than just good administrative practice.
