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The Mental Health Impact Of Housing Disrepair
Our home is defined as a place of comfort and safety. It is where we can retreat to at all times and know we will be welcomed by loved ones and home comforts. For many people, home is the last bastion of refuge in a life that involves complex needs and a myriad of issues, and hence, if home doesn’t offer safety and comfort in these circumstances, it can lead to a devastating downward spiral of mental health issues. Any [...]
A Landlord’s Repair Responsibilities External To The Home
It is generally understood what a landlord’s repair responsibilities are inside the home, and therefore what a tenant can claim for and what is actually their own responsibility. However, with regards to the outside of a rented property, this is something of a grey area. In terms of legal responsibilities, Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 states only that the landlord needs “to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house (including drains, gutters and [...]
Legal HD Supports Local Community & Charities in Manchester
Over the past 12 months we have been active in our local Manchester community and supported charitable initiatives including The Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness and the Wood Street Mission Christmas Appeal. In this blog, we highlight some of our charitable work and recent sponsorships. The Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness On November 15th 2023, three of the Housing Disrepair Team represented Legal HD in the 24 hour run Against Homelessness. It is a mass participation group relay [...]
Why Housing Disrepairs Need To Be Taken More Seriously
A combination of rent increases and disrepair issues has led to many people in the rental sector living in intolerable conditions. And given that the UK rental sector is more than twice the size it was 20 years ago, this points towards a major problem for the UK Government. Earlier this year, housing secretary Michael Gove introduced new legislation which he claimed would help “…tenants to feel empowered to stand up to bad landlords and report issues”, but a recent [...]
What Are Your Landlord’s Repair And Maintenance Responsibilities In Social Housing?
Repair and maintenance issues in social housing accommodation can be difficult to address because there are grey areas involved in terms of who is responsible. Unfortunately, where disrepair issues have been reported in social housing, it is quite common for incidents to result in disputes, or at least a landlord attempting to get away without paying for it or confronting their responsibilities. This article aims to give clear and concise information on what a social housing landlord is responsible for, [...]
Government Promises Robust Action Against Bad Landlords After Record Complaints
The Government has promised to drive up standards across the social housing sector and enforce the requirements of Awaab’s Law, after the Housing Ombudsman Service reported a record high in ‘escalated complaints’ against landlords over the course of 2023. The figures showed that social housing tenants had made 5109 escalated complaints in the year from October 2022 to October 2023. Cases of ‘severe maladministration’ had also increased from 31 to 131 across the UK, representing a “sobering overview” for the [...]
New Year, New Housing Association Problems – What Should You Do?
The start of a new year often supplies us with a motivation to approach things differently and an added resolve to deal with problems we maybe preferred to ignore in the run-up to Christmas. As the clock ticked over into 2024, maybe you had a lingering issue that had persisted for too long, and now that Christmas is out of the way and a fresh 12 months is laid out before us, you have the impetus to finally deal with [...]
Rodent Infestations – Is It Your Landlord’s Responsibility?
Any type of infestation in a property is unpleasant, such as insects or wasps, but where vermin is concerned this can become seriously damaging, to yourself as a tenant and to the property itself. It is therefore important that any infestation of rodents is reported to your landlord immediately, but whose responsibility it is to deal with the infestation is not so straightforward. Fundamentally, your landlord has a duty to ensure the property you are renting off them is fit [...]
The Hidden Danger of Rotting Windows And Mould
Some repairs that are reported to landlords of your rented property relate to breakdowns and issues that occur suddenly and out of the blue. In some cases these are preventable with scheduled maintenance programmes, but in other cases they are simply unforeseen occurrences that the landlord can’t be blamed for. However, some repair issues are harder to detect and can evolve over time, starting as a small, barely visible problem that has no consequences, but growing into a much bigger [...]
6 Things You Should Do If Your Housing Association Repairs Are Not Being Done
It can be extremely frustrating and stressful if you have made a formal complaint to your landlord about a repair issue in your housing association rented property, and the repair has not been carried out. Your landlord has a duty to provide a safe and comfortable property, so any repair issues which emerge, and which have not been caused by your own behaviour and/or negligence, should be attended to within a reasonable period of time. The first thing you should [...]
