Best practice by Habitat Hauts-de-France, France

Habitat Hauts-de-France manages 1,500 departures of tenants per year. This requires an enormous number of property inspections, be they incoming, outgoing or pre-departure. The pre-departure inspection of a flat is an advisory visit designed to avoid any billing to the leaving tenant for eventual repairs.

Carrying out these inspections can sometimes be a difficult task. Pressure is sometimes placed on Habitat Hauts-de-France staff during the inspections and errors in the calculations performed in real-time (calculation of the amount billed or to be refunded) are occasionally found.

The project involved the design of an adapted software program to be used on digital tablets, supporting the conduct of condition-of-property inspections in our properties, whilst respecting the billing conditions of the Joint Committee of users of HLM housing as well as the procedures in place within our company.

The development of these tablet apps strengthened and improved the quality of the service provided to the tenants:

• the advisory visit carried out for outgoing tenants (pre-departure condition-of-property inspection) is more reliable. It is conducted in just the same way as the definitive condition-of-property inspection carried out upon departure, and allows the most accurate estimate of the repairs that will be billed to the tenant.
• accuracy is enhanced as the calculations are performed automatically
• reactivity is improved: a complete hard copy is handed to the client at the end of the meeting.

Internally, this project contributed to improving the overall performance of the company since information is circulated electronically and is sent in real time, thereby facilitating the process of re-renting the property in a shorter time.