Housing Health and Safety Rating System

The 29 HHSRS hazards include: damp and mould, excess cold, excess heat, dust mites, asbestos, biocides, CO and other fuel combustion products, lead, radiation, uncombusted fuel gas, volatile organic compounds, indoor crowding and space, lighting, noise, falls, electrical safety, fire, food safety, personal hygiene, structural collapse, water supply. Each property is assessed and a score calculated. Tenants can request an HHSRS inspection from their council Environmental Health team — free of charge. Acts as a backstop where the landlord refuses to act.

In practice, HHSRS is not a checklist of things a home must have; it is a risk assessment of the likelihood of harm and how serious that harm would be, judged against the most vulnerable age group for each hazard. That is why the same cold, poorly insulated flat can produce a Category 1 excess cold hazard even though the tenants currently living there are young and healthy — the assessment considers the risk to an older occupant.

Worked example: Nia asks her council's environmental health team to inspect after her landlord ignores months of reports about a broken boiler, a loose stair rail and damp. The officer inspects, scores excess cold as Category 1 and falls on stairs as Category 2, and writes to the landlord. Because there is a Category 1 hazard, the council is under a duty to take one of the prescribed enforcement steps, and it serves an improvement notice with a deadline. The landlord ignores it, so the council carries out the works in default and recovers the cost, and can prosecute or issue a financial penalty. Nia keeps a copy of the notice, because a landlord who serves a possession notice shortly after enforcement action faces scrutiny over retaliatory eviction.

The pitfalls are procedural. Inspections are free, but you should report in writing to your landlord first and keep the evidence, since the council will ask what the landlord was told and when. A hazard awareness notice is the weakest outcome and carries no deadline, so ask which enforcement route the council is taking and why. Councils cannot take formal HHSRS enforcement action against themselves, so council tenants use the complaints process and the Housing Ombudsman instead. And an inspection is a snapshot: if conditions change, ask for a re-inspection rather than assuming the original score still stands.

HHSRS underpins council enforcement, while fitness for human habitation gives you a direct claim and Awaab's Law imposes fixed timescales on landlords. Read our guides to housing disrepair and landlord repair duties, then ask your council to inspect.