We will investigate health and safety concerns about private rented housing in line with the Housing Health & Safety Rating System (HHSRS)
The HHSRS is a risk-based system that helps us to identify potential hazards and assess their severity.
The assessment method focuses on any hazards that are present and tackling these hazards to make housing healthier and safer to live in.
The checks are carried out by an environmental health officer who will look for any risk of harm which results from a deficiency. They will judge the severity of the risk by thinking about the likelihood of an occurrence that could cause harm and the impact of that harm.
We have a duty to deal with the most serious hazards (category 1) and discretionary powers to deal with less serious hazards (category 2).
Actions we can take include:
- Informal negotiation with the landlord to improve the property.
- Serving a Hazard Awareness Notice where the hazards require attention, but no formal action will be taken if the issue is resolved.
- Serving an Improvement Notice which is a formal notice requiring action to be taken in a defined period of time.
- Emergency action, where the hazards require urgent attention we may carry out work ourselves and then recover the costs from the landlord.
- Issuing a Prohibition Order to prevent people living in all or part of a building until the works have been carried out.
- Restrict the number of people living in overcrowded properties.
Make a private rented housing complaint
If you are a landlord there is more information about the HHSRS on the government website.