What counts as housing disrepair
Disrepair means the property has deteriorated from the condition it should be in, and your landlord has not put it right within a reasonable time of being told. The two things that matter are that the defect falls within their responsibility, and that they had notice of it.
Notice is the part tenants most often lose on. A landlord is generally not liable for a defect inside your home until they know about it — so a repair you mentioned verbally to a housing officer two years ago, with nothing in writing, is much harder to prove than one reported by email. If you take nothing else from this page, take this: report it in writing, and keep the copy.
- Damp, mould and condensation Penetrating damp, rising damp, and condensation damp caused by inadequate ventilation, heating or insulation. Covered expressly by the fitness for habitation duty.
- Leaks and water damage Roofs, gutters, downpipes, plumbing, and leaks from a flat above where the landlord is responsible for both.
- Broken heating and hot water Boilers, radiators and immersion heaters. A home without working heating in winter is a serious disrepair, not an inconvenience.
- Electrical faults Unsafe wiring, failed sockets, no working lighting, and installations that have never been tested.
- Structural defects Roofs, walls, floors, ceilings, windows and doors — including windows that will not open, close or lock.
- Drainage and sanitation Blocked or broken drains, toilets, baths, basins and waste pipes.
- Vermin and infestation Where it results from a defect in the property — a hole in the structure, or a drainage fault — rather than from how the home is used.
- Fire and carbon monoxide safety Missing or non-working alarms, and defects in fire doors or means of escape.
Damp and mould: your landlord cannot blame your lifestyle
This is the single most common defence tenants are given at the door, and it is usually wrong.
Landlords frequently say that damp is condensation, that condensation is caused by drying washing indoors or not opening windows, and that it is therefore the tenant's problem. Sometimes lifestyle contributes. But if a home cannot be heated affordably, has no working extractor fan, has single glazing with no trickle vents, or has insulation so poor that cold bridging makes surfaces damp, then the condensation is a symptom of a defect in the property. That is the landlord's responsibility, not yours.
The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 put this beyond argument for tenancies it covers. Fitness is assessed against the hazards in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, and damp and mould growth is the first hazard on that list. If a property is unfit because of damp, the landlord is in breach for the whole period it remains unfit — whatever they think about your washing.
The legal and regulatory pressure here has increased sharply since the death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale in 2020 from prolonged mould exposure. Awaab's Law introduces strict deadlines for social landlords to investigate and remedy reported hazards, and the sector has been left in no doubt what is expected. If you have reported damp or mould and been told to open a window, that is a reason to get advice, not a reason to give up.
The pre-action protocol for housing disrepair claims
Housing disrepair claims in England and Wales run under a specific pre-action protocol, and knowing how it works tells you what should be happening and when.
The protocol exists to get repairs done without litigation. It sets out what a tenant must tell the landlord, what the landlord must disclose in return, how an expert is instructed, and the timescales for each step. Following it properly matters, because a party who ignores it can be penalised on costs even if they eventually win.
In outline: we send an early notification letter if a full letter of claim will take time, which lets the landlord start investigating straight away. Then the letter of claim sets out the defects, when they were reported, the effect on you and what we want done. The landlord has 20 working days to respond, and must disclose their records — the repair history, inspection reports, and any complaints file — which is often where the case is really won, because it shows how long they have known.
A single joint expert is then usually instructed, agreed by both sides, to inspect and report on the defects, their cause and the cost of putting them right. Where the landlord accepts responsibility the work is scheduled and compensation negotiated. Where they do not, proceedings can be issued, though most claims settle well before that.
One detail worth knowing: if the disrepair is putting you or your family at real risk, the protocol does not have to be followed to the letter before applying to court for an order requiring urgent works. Say so when you call.
How long a housing disrepair claim takes
Most housing disrepair claims take six to twelve months from first contact to settlement. That is the compensation timeline — the repairs themselves usually happen much sooner, and getting them moving is the first thing we do.
The stages that consume the time are the landlord's 20 working days to respond to the letter of claim, arranging and receiving the single joint expert's report, and then negotiating. A claim against a well-run housing association that admits the defects early can conclude in a few months. A claim where liability is disputed, the property needs re-inspection after works, or several landlords have been involved will take longer.
What speeds it up is entirely within your control: written evidence of when you reported each defect, photographs with dates, and a note of how the disrepair has actually affected you. What slows it down is a case built only on what was said verbally.
What you can claim, and the time limits
A housing disrepair claim has two halves, and the time limits differ.
The first is an order that the repairs be carried out. This is often the real objective, and where a landlord has ignored you for years an order carries weight that another phone call does not.
The second is compensation. That covers general damages for the discomfort, inconvenience and loss of enjoyment of your home over the period it was in disrepair — usually assessed by reference to a proportion of the rent for the affected period, weighted by how bad it was and how much of the home was affected. It also covers your actual losses: damaged furniture, carpets, clothing and belongings, higher heating bills where the property could not be kept warm, redecoration, and the cost of alternative accommodation if you had to move out.
Where disrepair has caused ill health — respiratory illness from mould is the common one — that is a personal injury claim brought alongside the disrepair claim. It is worth flagging early, because the limitation period is different.
On time limits: a claim for breach of the repairing covenant is a contract claim, so the period is six years. A personal injury element carries the shorter three-year period running from your date of knowledge. Because disrepair is usually a continuing breach rather than a single event, you can normally claim for the last six years of it even where the problem began earlier.
Who we act for, and who we do not
We take housing disrepair claims against councils and housing associations. We do not act against private landlords, and it is fairer to say so on this page than after you have left your details.
If you rent privately and your landlord will not repair, you are not without options — and the ones that work best are free:
Your local council's environmental health team can inspect the property under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System and serve an improvement notice on your landlord. It costs nothing, it is often quick, and it also triggers the retaliatory eviction protections in the Deregulation Act 2015, which can invalidate a section 21 notice served in the following six months. Shelter and Citizens Advice both give free, expert housing advice and can tell you where you stand.
If you are a council or housing association tenant, read on — the rest of this page is for you.
Can my landlord evict me for claiming?
This is the fear that stops most tenants, and for a social tenant the answer is straightforward.
A council or a housing association cannot evict you for complaining about disrepair. Their tenancies are secure or assured, and possession requires a ground that a disrepair complaint simply does not create. Bringing a claim is not a breach of your tenancy and it is not something that can be held against you.
There is also a complaints route running alongside any claim. Social landlords must operate a complaints procedure under the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code, and once you have exhausted it the Housing Ombudsman can order both repairs and compensation, free of charge.
If you are still worried, say so at the first call. It changes the order we do things in, not whether you have a claim.
What to do before you call us
Four things, none of which takes long, and all of which make the claim much stronger.
- Put every report in writing Email or the landlord's online portal, not a phone call. Notice is what your landlord will dispute, and an email with a date settles it.
- Photograph everything, repeatedly Every affected room, with something for scale, and again as it gets worse. Photographs with dates on them are the most persuasive evidence in a disrepair file.
- Keep a short diary When you reported it, who you spoke to, what was promised, whether anyone came. Also how it has affected you — sleeping in one room, a child's asthma, belongings ruined.
- Keep receipts and bills Replacement furniture, bedding, clothing, dehumidifiers, and heating bills from the period the property could not be kept warm.
Complaining to your landlord and the Ombudsman
A legal claim is not always the first step, and we will tell you when it is not.
If you rent from a council or housing association, the landlord must have a complaints procedure, and the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code sets out how it must run. Once you have exhausted it, you can take the complaint to the Housing Ombudsman, which is free and can order both repairs and compensation. Since the removal of the old "democratic filter" delay you no longer have to wait months before referring a complaint.
If you rent privately, your local authority's environmental health team can inspect under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System and serve an improvement notice on the landlord. That is free, it is often fast, and it also triggers the retaliatory eviction protections described above.
These routes and a disrepair claim are not alternatives — they frequently run together, and a local authority notice is powerful evidence in the claim. What we will not do is push you into litigation where a complaint would get the work done faster.