CareHomeDeskCareHomeDeskWhat the NHF Schedule of Rates is, how it works, and how to use it to challenge contractor pricing.
The National Housing Federation Schedule of Rates (NHF SOR) is a comprehensive pricing schedule for maintenance, repair and improvement work in residential properties. Developed by and for the social housing sector, it is widely used by housing associations, local authorities and care providers as a fair and transparent basis for pricing maintenance contracts. The schedule provides unit rates for hundreds of specific maintenance tasks.
The NHF SOR provides a base rate (typically in the South East of England) plus regional adjustment factors for the rest of the UK. Contractors price work by measuring the scope and applying the schedule rates, rather than producing their own opaque estimates. This transparency means that like-for-like comparisons are straightforward and pricing can be challenged with reference to the schedule.
If you receive a maintenance quote that seems high, request a breakdown of labour hours, materials and plant separately. You can then check the labour rate against local market rates, check materials pricing against trade suppliers, and check the overall cost against the SOR equivalent task. If a quote for a specific repair is significantly higher than the SOR rate, ask the contractor to justify the difference.
The NHF SOR is updated periodically but may not always reflect current material costs during periods of significant price inflation. For specialist or highly complex tasks, the schedule may not have an exact equivalent rate -- in these cases, rates should be agreed by reference to comparable tasks or on a cost-plus basis. The SOR is a tool for benchmarking, not a substitute for competitive tendering on significant projects.
CareHomeDesk gives you compliance checklists, maintenance logs, and contractor management tools built around exactly this kind of knowledge.