The Housing Health and Safety Rating System Replaces the Fitness Standard

by | Apr 7, 2006 | Regulation and Compliance

For anyone letting residential property, the way their homes were judged changed in April 2006. On 6 April 2006 the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, known as HHSRS, came into effect in England under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004. It replaced the fitness standard that councils had used for many years.

From a checklist to a risk assessment

The old fitness standard asked whether a home failed a short list of basic requirements. HHSRS works differently. It looks at the hazards a home presents to the people most likely to be harmed by them, and at how likely and how serious that harm would be. The system covers 29 hazards, from damp and mould, excess cold and falls on stairs to entry by intruders, noise and structural collapse.

Each hazard is scored. The most serious are Category 1 hazards, and a council has a duty to take action on them. Less serious Category 2 hazards can still lead to action at the council’s discretion. Enforcement options include hazard awareness notices, improvement notices, prohibition orders, emergency remedial action and, in the most serious cases, demolition orders.

What it means for landlords

  • Condition is now judged by its effect on health. A home can be in reasonable repair and still present a hazard, for example a steep stair without a handrail or poor heating and insulation.
  • Older property needs a fresh look. Period houses and conversions often have features that the old standard did not focus on.
  • Repairs and improvements should be planned. Dealing with the likely hazards in a programme is cheaper than reacting to an enforcement notice.

A practical approach

  1. Commission a condition survey that records hazards as well as defects.
  2. Prioritise the items most likely to be scored as serious, such as cold, damp, falls and electrical safety.
  3. Build the remaining items into a costed maintenance plan so that standards improve year by year.
  4. Keep records of inspections and works. They show that you take your obligations seriously.

We inspect residential buildings, diagnose defects and turn the findings into practical repair programmes. See our Building Surveys and Defect Diagnosis service, and how we carried out a damp investigation in a London block.