Housing Disrepair: Your Rights and How to Get Repairs Done

Housing disrepair happens when a landlord fails a legal repair duty, most often under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 or the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018. Most disrepair gets fixed for free, through your council, well before anyone needs a solicitor or the court.

Information last verified on 18 July 2026. This guide is general legal information, not legal advice.

Jurisdiction scope: This guide focuses on private renting in England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own repair and enforcement regimes, summarised briefly below; check the nation-specific guidance before relying on the England detail here. It is general information, not advice on your own tenancy. For help, contact Shelter, Housing Rights, or Citizens Advice.

What counts as housing disrepair?

Housing disrepair is a landlord's failure to meet a legal repair duty, not simply a home a tenant would like to be nicer. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires a landlord to keep the structure and exterior of a rented home in repair, including the roof, walls, windows and drains, and to keep in repair and proper working order the installations for water, gas and electricity supply, sanitation, and space and water heating. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 goes further, requiring the home to be fit to live in from the start of the tenancy and throughout it, which can cover serious damp, mould or cold even where nothing is physically broken. Typical disrepair includes a leaking roof, damaged windows, a broken boiler, unsafe electrics, and structural problems such as cracked walls. For damp and mould specifically, see landlord repairs, damp and mould.

Your landlord's legal duties

A landlord's repairing duty under Section 11 runs for the whole tenancy and cannot usually be excluded by the tenancy agreement, however the contract is worded. It does not cover damage caused by the tenant's own misuse, or fixtures the tenant is entitled to remove, and a landlord is generally only in breach once they know, or ought reasonably to know, about the problem and have had a fair chance to fix it. What counts as a fair chance depends on how serious the problem is: a total loss of heating in winter, or a serious leak, calls for a fast response, while a minor cosmetic repair can reasonably take longer. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 sits alongside Section 11 and lets a tenant act on unfitness even where no single part of the property has "broken."

How to get repairs done, in the right order

Most housing disrepair gets fixed without a solicitor or a court, if you work through the free steps below in order rather than jumping straight to legal action.

1. Report it to your landlord in writing. Tell your landlord or letting agent about the problem in writing, by email or letter rather than only by phone, describing what is wrong and, ideally, attaching photos and the date you noticed it. Keep a copy of everything you send. This creates the evidence a council or court will later expect to see, and it starts the clock on what counts as a reasonable time to fix the problem.
2. Give reasonable time to respond and fix it. How long is reasonable depends on the severity: an emergency such as no heating or hot water in winter, or a serious leak, calls for action within days, while a minor repair can reasonably take longer. If the landlord does nothing, or the work is not done properly, move to the next step.
3. Contact your council's environmental health or private-sector housing team (free). Ask for an inspection under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). Officers assess the property for hazards and, where they find a serious ("category 1") hazard, the council must take action, which can include serving an improvement notice requiring the landlord to carry out specified works by a deadline. This costs the tenant nothing.
4. If you rent from a council or housing association, use the Housing Ombudsman Service (free). Complain to your landlord first, through their own complaints process, and if it remains unresolved once you have completed that process, you can refer it to the Housing Ombudsman Service, a free, independent service that can order a landlord to carry out repairs, apologise, or pay compensation for the impact on you.
5. Court, as a last resort. If the free routes have not resolved a genuine, serious disrepair problem, a solicitor, Citizens Advice or a Law Centre can advise on a disrepair claim. A court can order the landlord to carry out the repairs and, in some cases, award compensation reflecting the impact of the disrepair, but going to court takes longer, is not guaranteed to succeed, and can carry a costs risk, so it typically follows the free routes rather than replacing them.

Can my landlord evict me for complaining about disrepair?

Some tenants worry that reporting disrepair will prompt a landlord to evict them instead of fixing the problem. Since Section 21 "no-fault" eviction was abolished in England for private tenancies on 1 May 2026, a landlord can no longer serve a no-fault notice at all, for any reason, which removes the main route retaliatory eviction used to take. Every eviction now needs a genuine Section 8 ground, decided by the County Court, and reporting a repair problem is not itself a ground for eviction. If you are served a Section 8 notice shortly after complaining, or after the council has been involved, get advice quickly from Shelter or Citizens Advice, since the timing can be relevant to whether the notice is genuinely about the stated ground. See Section 8 notice for the grounds a landlord can use, and eviction process in England for how a possession case works.

Should I use a "no win no fee" disrepair claims company?

You may see "no win no fee" housing disrepair claims companies advertise online, promising to recover compensation for you. They are not a free or official route, and using one is not required to get repairs done: the landlord, council and Housing Ombudsman steps above cost nothing and usually fix the problem faster than a legal claim does. If you are weighing whether to bring a claim for compensation as well as getting repairs done, ask a solicitor, Citizens Advice or Shelter to explain the options, and any costs or deductions from compensation, before you sign anything with a claims company. This page cannot tell you whether you have a claim or what it might be worth; that depends on your own tenancy, the disrepair, and how your landlord has responded, so get individual advice rather than relying on an advertised figure.

Repairs and disrepair in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each enforce repair standards through different routes, so do not assume the English steps above apply. In Wales, occupation contracts under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 carry their own fitness-for-human-habitation and repair duties, with local councils and Rent Smart Wales-registered agents both having a role. In Scotland, a landlord must meet the Repairing Standard under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, enforced not by the council but by the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber), which can issue a Repairing Standard Enforcement Order. In Northern Ireland, a district council's environmental health team can serve a Notice of Disrepair or a Notice of Unfitness under the Private Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, with fines available against a landlord who ignores one. Check Shelter Cymru, mygov.scot, or Housing Rights for the current process in your nation.

Frequently asked questions

This page is general legal information about housing disrepair and how to get repairs done in England, verified on 18 July 2026. It is not legal advice, does not offer a claims service, and how the rules apply depends on your tenancy and where you rent. For advice, contact Shelter, Shelter Cymru, Housing Rights, Citizens Advice, or a solicitor. For related guides, see UK tenant rights, landlord repairs, damp and mould, tenancy deposit protection, Section 8 notice, and the United Kingdom law hub.