Abstract
Recent governments have highlighted the problems of unfitness and why individual homeowners should intervene to deal with the maintenance problems of their own homes. Current estimates of the cost of comprehensive renewal are said to run into billions of pounds. There is also a genuine concern that the number of unfit dwellings will continue to increase regardless of the steady pace of renewal programmes. Arguably this concern has greatly influenced the dynamics of primary maintenance attributes of property owners. The primary attributes are recognised to be a product of increased owner-maintenance awareness; enhanced owner-maintenance skills and knowledge; and the owner-maintenance management abilities. These attributes are interwoven, and therefore cannot be left out of current initiatives to improving the backlog of under-maintenance in the owner-occupier sector.