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A tenant texts you a photo of a wet ceiling at 11 at night. Another one mentions a broken lock in the hallway on Tuesday. A third leaves a sticky note on the office door that just says "sink." By Friday you can't remember who reported what, or whether anyone fixed the lock.
A maintenance request form puts every repair in one place, in the same shape, with the details you need to fix it on the first visit. This guide covers what to ask, how to flag urgent problems without turning a form into an emergency line, photo uploads, and where each request should land. At the end you'll find a free maintenance request form in Word and PDF, plus a work-order log that counts how long each job stays open.
It works for landlords and property managers, and also for anyone who looks after a building: a school's facilities team, an office manager, a church, a hotel's front desk. Complaints that are not repairs belong on a customer complaint form instead.
What to ask on a maintenance request form#
Every question should help someone fix the problem or get in the door. Here's the core set:
| Question | Type | Why it's there |
|---|---|---|
| Name and best phone number | Short text and phone | So the person doing the job can call before the visit |
| Unit number or location | Short text or dropdown | A dropdown of buildings or rooms stops "the one by the stairs" |
| Where in the unit | Multiple choice | Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living area, outside or shared area |
| What kind of problem | Multiple choice | Plumbing, heating or cooling, electrical, appliance, doors and locks, pests, other |
| What is wrong | Long text | Ask what they see or hear, and where exactly |
| How soon it needs fixing | Multiple choice | Emergency, Urgent or Routine, each with examples |
| Photos or a short video | File upload | So the right part comes on the first trip |
| Permission to enter if no one is home | Multiple choice (Yes or No) | Respect the answer, and follow your lease and local rules on entry |
| Best days and times for a visit | Short text | Saves three rounds of phone tag |
| Pets, alarm or gate codes | Short text | The things that stop a visit at the door |
Not sure which question type fits a row? Here's every question type and when to use it.
Questions that save a second visit#
Two changes make a big difference:
- Ask for one problem per form. A tenant with a leaky faucet and a broken blind sends two requests. Each repair then gets its own row in your log and its own closed date.
- Give an example in the "what is wrong" question. "Water drips from under the kitchen sink when the faucet runs" tells you far more than "sink broken." Put that example in the question's description, and most people copy the pattern.
Urgent vs routine: flag emergencies the right way#
Your form needs an urgency question, and each choice needs examples, or everything turns into "urgent." Here's a set that works for most buildings:
- Emergency: danger to people or the building right now. A gas smell, fire, flooding, sparks, or an outside door that won't lock.
- Urgent: needs a fix within a day or two. No heat or hot water, the only toilet won't flush, a fridge that stopped working.
- Routine: can wait for a booked visit. A dripping faucet, a sticky door, a broken blind.
Here's the hard rule: a form is not an emergency line. Nobody should report a gas leak and then wait for you to check your messages. So use conditional logic to put your phone number in front of anyone who picks Emergency. Add a short note to the form, such as "Call 911 for a fire, a gas smell or if anyone is in danger. For flooding, sparks or an outside door that won't lock, call our emergency line now: (555) 010-0199." Then add a show rule, so the note appears only when someone picks Emergency. A block targeted by a show rule stays hidden until its rule matches, so people who pick Urgent or Routine never see it.
Put the same number in your lease papers, in the building and at the top of the printed form. Then make sure someone answers it.
Photos and videos with every request#
A photo of the leak beats three paragraphs about it. Add a file upload question and call it something like "Photos or a short video (optional)."
- Up to 10 files per question. One person can send the leak, the stain on the ceiling below and the model sticker on the water heater.
- Limit the file types. Allow images and video only, so nobody sends you a 40-page PDF by mistake.
- File size. Free allows files up to 10 MB each, and Pro and Business have no plan cap. Short phone videos can pass 10 MB, so on Free, ask for photos first.
- No account needed. Tenants and staff never sign in to send a request or upload a file.
Keep the question optional. Some problems, like a noise in the wall, don't photograph well, and a required upload stops people from reporting at all.
Send each maintenance request to your team#
A request that sits in an inbox nobody checks is worse than a sticky note. Decide where each one lands before you share the form, and switch on each place you pick:
- An email to yourself. It's off by default, so turn on an email to yourself for each new response. On Pro and Business, the email can carry a PDF copy of the response.
- A Slack or Discord message. Each request posts to a channel, such as #maintenance, with the answers in the message.
- A Google Sheets row. Each request adds a row with a Response ID, the time it arrived (Submitted at), one column per question and a link to the response.
- A Notion database. Each request becomes a page in a Notion database, with the answers mapped to its properties.
All four are built in on every plan, and you can turn on more than one. Here's more on where your form responses can go.
You can also send the person who asked a short confirmation email. Pick the email question that holds their address in the notification settings, then write your own subject and body: "We got your maintenance request. We'll call you within one working day to book a visit." Promise only what your team can keep.
Good to know: on Pro and Business you can add people to your HornetForms workspace, and anyone you add can read every response in it. If you also take rental applications or staff forms in the same workspace, keep those in a separate workspace before you add your maintenance crew.
Track work orders in a sheet#
The form collects requests. Running the repairs happens in your own work-order log, where you decide who takes each job and when it's done. Our free log has one row per request with these columns:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Request date | The day it came in (the Submitted at date from the form) |
| Unit or location | Copied from the request |
| Issue | A short summary, such as "No hot water" |
| Urgency | Emergency, Urgent or Routine |
| Status | New, Scheduled, In progress, Waiting on parts or Done |
| Assigned to | A staff name or an outside company |
| Closed date | The day the job finished |
| Days open | Worked out for you: closed date minus request date, or today minus request date while the job is open |
| Notes | What was done, parts on order, or "call first" |
Set a target, such as seven days for a routine repair, and any open job past it turns red. The Summary tab counts open requests by urgency, shows the oldest open request and works out the average days to close. It's the number to look at each Monday morning.
Paste new requests in from your Google Sheets row or a CSV export, then keep Status and Assigned to up to date in the log as the job moves. A work order request form for a facilities team works the same way: the form collects, the log tracks.
Tenants' repair rights: what the rules say#
Repair rules come from state and local law and from the lease, so they change from place to place. Two public sources show the kind of rules you'll meet. This is not legal advice, so check your state and city before you set your process.
HUD-assisted housing. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's brochure for residents of HUD-assisted multifamily properties lists "The right to have repairs performed in a timely manner, upon request." It also lists "The right to be given reasonable notice, in writing, of any non-emergency inspection or other entry into your apartment." On the resident's side, it lists reporting "any defects in building systems, fixtures, appliances, or other parts of the apartment." (HUD, Resident Rights & Responsibilities, Office of Multifamily Housing Programs, read 28 October 2026.) The brochure covers HUD-assisted multifamily housing only, not every rental.
One state's rules: Texas. The Texas Attorney General's renter's rights page says "You have a right to demand that the landlord repair any condition that materially affects your physical health or safety." For a tenant to use the legal remedies, the page says to "Send the landlord a dated letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, or by registered mail, outlining the needed repairs." On timing, it says "The law presumes seven days to be a reasonable time, but the landlord can rebut this presumption." (Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Renter's Rights, read 28 October 2026.)
Two lessons carry over to any state:
- An online maintenance request form may not count as legal notice. In Texas, the Attorney General's page tells tenants to send a dated letter by certified or registered mail before they use the legal remedies. Your form is still the fastest way to hear about a repair. If your state asks for written notice in a set way, say so on the form and tell tenants where to send it.
- Ask before you enter. The permission-to-enter question on the form exists for a reason. HUD's brochure lists written notice before a non-emergency entry, and your lease or local rules may set their own. Treat a "No, call me first" answer as a promise.
Printable and online versions#
Some tenants will always prefer paper, and some buildings have staff without a work email. Offer both:
- Online: share the form link in your welcome email, put it in your tenant portal or website, and print a QR code on a notice by the mailboxes or in the laundry room. Here's how to make a QR code for a form people actually scan.
- On paper: print the free maintenance request form below, keep a stack in the office, and log each paper request the same day.
For hotels, schools and offices#
A staff version of the form swaps tenant details for the reporter's name, department and the room or area. A hotel front desk might add the room number and whether a guest is in it. A school might add the building and "Is this a safety issue for students?" as a yes or no. The urgency choices, the photo upload and the log stay the same.
Two close cousins have their own guides. Booking a room or hall is a facility rental request form, and computer and software problems belong on an IT support request form template.
Download the maintenance request form and work-order log#
The maintenance request form. Edit it in Word (DOCX), or print a PDF, US Letter or a PDF, A4. It has an "Is it an emergency?" box with room for your phone number, six short sections from contact details to signature, an urgency table with examples, the permission-to-enter question and an office-use box. The last page gives the person who runs repairs a checklist before they hand it out.
The work-order log. The work-order log spreadsheet opens in Excel and Google Sheets. It has six EXAMPLE requests to delete, dropdowns for Urgency and Status, the Days open formula and a Summary tab. The log as a CSV holds the same columns and example rows for any other tool.
Build your maintenance request form online#
Start from a blank form and add the questions from the first table. Add the urgency question, the emergency note with its show rule and a file upload for photos. Then connect Google Sheets or Slack, switch on the email to yourself, and test it once from your phone. HornetForms has unlimited responses within fair use, so a busy winter of frozen pipes won't hit a cap you didn't set. If you do want a cap, here's what happens when a form hits a response limit.
The pricing page shows what each plan includes, and the Free plan is free forever. Sign up for free and have your maintenance request form ready before the next wet ceiling.