No need for you to do house maintenance - theoretically

When I moved with my other half to the market town she has her curacy at she got a curates house provided as part of the job.

This is a pretty good perk when you consider how much more one of us would need to earn pre-tax to afford the £1400 or so rent on the curates house - (a detached 1980/90's ish building with 3 bedrooms.)_

As it happens the parish - rather than the diocese - owns the curates house and so are responsible for its maintenance.

And they've been very good at that.  I think the previous curates husband was a good DIYer - so fixed quite a lot of stuff himself for the parish.  I'm not any good at DIY so once the parish knew that  - they have got tradespeople in promptly to fix things as and when necessary.

Chatting with some other husbands of Revs I gather once your other half gets her 1st vicar job the Diocese people can be quite slow on fixing things that aren't essential.  So for example - one story I heard about the diocese is that they got somebody in within a week to fix a water heating problem.  Inconvenient  - going a couple a week without hot water but manageable. 

However when asked to fix a bathroom door without a lock they were much slower - as in they still haven't fixed it 18 months later.  Obviously a lack of a bathroom lock isn't an urgent thing - but for a family with teenage daughters it is something that the teenagers won't like.

So I've been getting some advice on what to do when your other half gets their 1st vicar job.  Apparently the important thing to do is to do a walk round with the Diocese property people and somebody like an Archdeacon to list any defects that need sorting - and then to confirm that list to both individuals and whoever you report to.

This approach may not get the defects fixed - but at least it will document what needs sorting.  And if you can afford it you'll need to be prepared to fix (or pay to get somebody to fix) defects that the diocese are unlikely to be in a hurry to address.