Housing standards

We aim to improve standards of health and safety in rented properties (private and social housing) by responding to complaints from tenants about poor housing conditions and properties that may be hazardous to live in. We seek to improve standards and ensure that accommodation has risks to health and safety removed or minimised. 

This includes Houses in Multiple Occupation HMOs (houses let as rooms or a house share where persons share amenities like the bathroom and/or the kitchen), we will try to ensure that homes are suitable and safe for the number of people living there.

How we can help tenants

If you are a private or social housing tenant and concerned about the condition of your home, we can inspect the property. An assessment will be carried out and where unacceptable hazards exist, we may be able to take action.

Usually this involves the owner or landlord carrying out necessary repairs or improvements.

How we assess housing conditions

The Housing Health and Safety Rating System HHSRS (Gov.UK) is a risk-based approach to identifying defects in dwellings and of evaluating the potential effect of any defects on the health and safety of occupants.

This approach looks at different hazards in accommodation and provides guidance to help officers determine the real risk of actual harm from any of them. A formula is used to score the hazard, and this will determine the category of the hazard.

We have a duty to deal with the more serious hazards. Powers to deal with the hazards, include informal hazard awareness notices, formal improvement and prohibition notices, plus specific provisions for dealing with urgent hazards.

Damp and mould advice

Damp

If you are experiencing problems with damp and mould in your rented property then please follow the advice below before contacting your landlord. Damp has three causes:

Condensation (the most common form of damp in rented properties)

• Appears when excess moisture in the air comes into contact with a cold surface, such as a window or a cold wall. It can lead to mould growth and tends to be worse in winter.
• Can be caused by a tenant not ventilating or heating their home properly. Heating your home keeps the surfaces warm which in turn reduces condensation.
• Can also be caused by poor insulation, or faulty heating and ventilation systems that are the responsibility of the landlord. 
• Is important to use any means of ventilation that you have in your house to keep the humidity down to a reasonable level whilst also heating the home adequately. 

Controlling Condensation is all about reducing the amount of water in the air inside the home and keeping the home warm. Normal daily activities like cooking, washing, drying clothes and boiling the kettle can all add to the humidity inside so:

• Use lids on cooking pots.
• Keep the kitchen and or bathroom doors closed when cooking/showering and use any extract ventilation that you are provided with.
• Keep any trickle vents open even when you have your heating on. 
• Do not dry your clothes inside if you have any alternative. If you have no alternative then you must understand that the water from those clothes will go into the air and may reappear later as condensation. A good compromise is to dry them in e.g. a bathroom with the door closed and the window open to try and direct the water outside.
• Make sure your tumble drier is in working order and if necessary vented to the outside air.
• Heat the property consistently.

There may be reasons why you cannot follow some of the advice above for example because your heating is inefficient or expensive and so you are unable to keep the house warm or perhaps you do not have sufficient insulation or ventilation in your home. If this is the case then you should raise these issues with your landlord - seeking assistance from the Council later if you are unable to resolve matters.

Penetrating damp

This is where water has seeped in due to some other structural defect like a leaking pipe, or blown external render, missing defective pointing on brickwork. This shows up as brown patches where the water has come through the structure and as above may also have associated mould.

Rising damp

This is where a damp proof course is defective or missing and water seeps up from the ground into the property. It is usually characterised by a tidemark like brown line at low level on the outside walls. This could also be accompanied by black mould and or defective/blown plaster and/or white powder on the surface.

Mould

Where mould already exists then you can treat it with proprietary anti mould spray (from a hardware store) but it will return if you do not deal with the reason that it was able to form in the first place that is by addressing any issues of high humidity or poor heating/ventilation/insulation.

Report housing standards issue

Retaliatory eviction

This is a real issue which some tenants can experience. It describes a situation where a landlord issues an eviction notice when a tenant makes a complaint, to avoid being required to undertake works. In order to be offered some protection from this by the law you should ensure that you follow the following guidance.

• You must, unless you have good reason, complain to your landlord in writing either by letter, text or email. You should set out the issues that you are concerned about, the effect that the issues are having on your family and if you know, what you would like the landlord to do about it. You should ask for an answer from your landlord, in writing explaining what his/her intentions are to investigate or act and you should set out a time frame within which he/she should respond to you. e.g. "Please let me know by DATE, what you intend to do to investigate/resolve these issues"  You should ensure that your timeframe is realistic based on the real priority of the issue.
• If your landlord fails to respond or provides a response that you are not satisfied with, then you can contact us for further assistance.  If you have followed this procedure and the Council then serves a statutory notice (not including a Hazard Awareness Notice) you can be protected from any eviction notice that your landlord issues for a period of time.

Failure to follow this procedure could affect your security in the premises.

Five-year electrical check

Landlords must ensure their fixed electrical installation is inspected and tested at least every five years by a qualified person to ensure they are safe. Further information on the five-year electrical check.