🤒 HHSRS, do you know what it means?

HHSRS, or Housing Health and Safety Rating System, is a risk-based assessment of a property to check for various hazards which has been in place since 2006. These assessments are carried out by an environmental health officer from the local council who will look for anything of concern which could have an adverse effect on a tenant’s health or safety.

It is likely, we hope, very few of you will have first-hand experience of a HHSRS visit and so today we would like to give you a little information and offer some guidance. The full Government issued guidance can be found here.

Why would the council undertake a HHSRS visit?

It is usually as a result of the council receiving a complaint from the tenant of substandard living conditions and concerns for their health and safety.

How do agents, or landlords, know it’s happening?

The council will often, as a minimum, write to the agent to discuss an upcoming visit. In out team’s experience, the better councils will be more proactive and look to discuss the matter with the agent, or landlord, in the first instance. This can often resolve any malicious or miss-represented issues, for instance if steps are already in place to make the appropriate repairs.

What are hazards?

There are 29 hazards in total which are used to assess the property, which can then be categorised at the discretion of the assessor. We don’t want to over expand on this subject, so please find a list of all hazards here.

How is the hazard assessed?

The assessor will consider the severity of the issue based on the chance of harm, how serious the harm will be and any extra risk if venerable people live at the property. They will then categorise the hazard based on these considerations with Category 1 hazards being the most urgent.

What happens if hazards are identified?

Usually the council will take one of the following actions:

👩‍🔧 Issue an improvement notice which will identify the hazards and demand the landlord, or their agent, take appropriate action to remedy the issue within a given timescale.

⚠️ Issue a hazard awareness notice which gives advice to the landlord on how to fix something, but doesn’t give a timescale. Usually used for Category 2 hazards, or where the landlord is clearly going to be taking immediate action (if they are at the initial visit)

🚨 Emergency remedial action is where the council will carry out the work themselves and charge the landlord. This is only likely if there’s a very real possibility of imminent serious harm.

⛔️ Issue a prohibition order which will prevent people from living in part or all of the property, or restrict the number of people who can live there in cases of overcrowding. This usually takes effect after 4 weeks, but in extreme cases can implement immediately.

Does that mean the landlord can’t serve a Section 21 notice?

The original information on this was a little hazy following reference to 'retaliatory’ evictions in the Deregulation Act 2015 but in reality, it depends on the outcome of the visit. If an improvement notice is issued or emergency remedial action is taken, the landlord will be unable to issue a Section 21 notice for a minimum of 6 months. In cases of a hazard awareness notice, or where no action is taken, they are not precluded from a Section 21 much to tenants' confusion.

Hopefully some new and informative information for you, but it doesn’t end there. Joint us next time for the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 which extends HHSRS!