Housing, Health & Safety Rating System

HHSRS

The Housing Act 2004 received the Royal Assent on Thursday 18^th November 2004; however, the vast majority of sections were introduced by Ministerial order. The Housing, Health & Safety Rating System came into force on 6^th April 2006 as a result of the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System (England) Regulations 2005 SI 3208.

Part 1 of the new Act contains provisions to replace the housing fitness regime set out in the Housing Act 1985.  The separate Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) fitness test will also be repealed.  The test of fitness is to be replaced with an evidence-based risk assessment process, carried out using the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).  Action by local authorities will be based on a three-stage consideration:

(a)     the hazard rating determined under HHSRS;

(b)     whether the authority has a duty or power to act, determined by the presence of a hazard above or below a threshold prescribed by Regulations (Category 1 and Category 2 hazards); and

(c)     the authority's judgement as to the most appropriate course of action to deal with the hazard.

Landlord's Responsibilities: 

The landlord will be responsible for the exterior of the dwelling, the structural elements of the property and the inside facilities which are part of that property be it a flat or a house.

Exterior and structure

The landlord's responsibilities under s.11 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 are clear and widely understood. The Act states that a landlord's responsibilities include the need to:-

"to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house (including drains, gutters and external pipes)".
It also covers responsibility:-

"to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the dwelling-house for the supply of water, gas and electricity and for sanitation (including basins, sinks, baths and sanitary conveniences, but not other fixtures, fittings and appliances for making use of the supply of water, gas or electricity), and to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the dwelling-house for space heating and heating water."

An example given in the Guidance is

"Preventive measures that could have a significant effect on likelihood and harm outcomes relating to moisture production and ventilation:

• Damp proof courses, membranes and detailing around doors and window openings;

• External fabric kept in good repair to avoid rain penetration;

• Frost protection for pipes and tanks;

• Properly installed baths, sinks etc.,

• Properly installed drainage;

• Properly installed and maintained rainwater goods;

• Properly ventilated roof and under floor spaces to ensure timber remains air dry;

• Adequate extraction of moisture laden air during peak times, like cooking and bathing and laundry;

• Continuous low-level background ventilation where necessary;

• Sufficient means of ventilation to cope with moisture from normal domestic activities without the need to open windows that could lead to heat loss, noise and security risks; and

• Appropriate ventilation for dwellings of high occupant density."

Interior

Installations inside the property that will be looked at are the following:-

• Water, Gas and Electricity. These items must have whatever is needed for their proper use. All equipment necessary to supply these utilities must be fully, safely and correctly installed. Any removable equipment or appliances which use gas or electricity are not counted as "installations" unless these are provided by the landlord.

• Personal Hygiene covers provisions such as proper wash hand basins, showers and/or baths.

• Sanitation and drainage covers lavatories, WC basins, drains, waste pipes, rainwater goods, inlet gullies and inspection chambers.

• Food safety covers sinks, draining boards, worktops, cooking facilities or cooker points and space for cooking facilities, cupboards and/or shelves for storing cooking and eating utensils and equipment. It also includes food storage facilities, which these days are usually, just electricity sockets and refrigerator space.

• Ventilation covers elements such as airbricks, trickle vents, opening lights to windows and mechanical and non-mechanical ventilation equipment.

• Space and water heating installation covers any kind of fitted space heating appliances or central heating system. Moveable heaters provided by the occupier are not included. Installations for heating water cover any kind of fitted water system for providing the instant or stored heated water. Kettles and other appliances of that kind are not included.

Identifying Hazards:

Testing and Assessing Hazards

Hazards arise from faults or deficiencies in the dwelling, which could cause harm. A dwelling should be able to supply the basic needs for the everyday life of the range of households who could normally be expected to live in a dwelling of that size and type. The dwelling should not contain any deficiency that might give rise to a hazard, which interferes with, or puts at risk, the health or safety, or even the lives, of the occupants. So, to test whether a deficiency is connected to one or more hazards what is needed are:

(a) An understanding of the functions and workings of each element of the property, and

(b) the ability to assess or test whether the deficiency will cause a hazard.

What is a Hazard?

There are 29 Hazards and they are set in 32 pages in the Guidance to Landlords and Property Related Professionals.

The categories are:-

• Damp and mould growth, excess cold, excess heat, asbestos and MMF, biocides, carbon monoxide and fuel combustion products, lead, radiation, uncombusted fuel gas and volatile organic compounds.

• Crowding and space, entry by intruders, lighting and noise.

• Domestic hygiene, pests and refuse, food safety, personal hygiene, sanitation and drainage and water supply.

• Falls associated with baths etc, falling on level surfaces etc, falling on stairs etc, falling between levels, electrical hazards, fire, flames, hot surfaces etc, collision and entrapment, explosions, position and operability of amenities and structural collapse and falling elements.

What should a landlord or his agent do?

The following is a suggested process that a landlord could adopt to minimise the chances of any unacceptable hazards. Where a property is fully managed by an agent this approach would be undertaken by an agent on behalf of his landlord.

1. Inspect property

Room-by-room, checking elements, fixtures and fittings.

Check common parts, the stairs and shared rooms and amenities.

Check outside the building, looking at the external elements, and the yards, gardens and paths.

Record any deficiencies, disrepair or anything else that may give rise to a hazard.

2. Deficiencies & Hazards

Check if any of the deficiencies and faults contributes to any one or more of the 29 specified hazards.

Do the deficiencies -

(a) Increase the likelihood of a harmful occurrence? or

(b) Increase the severity of the harm?

3. Remedial action/work

Decide what needs to be done to remedy deficiencies and to reduce risks as low as reasonably practicable.

Work out a timetable for having works done.

Some action may be very urgent where an immediate risk to current occupiers is identified, others may be less urgent.

4. Keep Records

Record the programme of works.

Record date when works finished.

5. Review

Check that hazards have been removed/minimised.

Re-inspect property. (How frequently this need to be done depends on the age and type of property, and whether there has been any change of occupants. Some elements or facilities will need to be checked more frequently than others or when required by law, for example, gas appliances or by an accreditation scheme.

Causes of Hazards:

The first step in checking the state of a dwelling is an inspection to identify deficiencies that could cause problems for the dwelling as a whole. It might be that the deficiency arises because of the way the dwelling was designed or built in the first place, or because of wear and tear, or because of a lack of care and repair over a period of time. As far as HHSRS is concerned, a deficiency becomes important when it can be seen that its effect is able to cause harm that is when it results in a hazard. It is possible for a single deficiency to have an effect on, or contribute to, more than one hazard. For instance, a badly maintained ceiling could lead to the hazards of:

• Excess cold - because of increased heat loss,

• Fire - by allowing fire and smoke to spread to other parts of the dwelling,

• Lead - from old paint,

• Domestic hygiene, pests and refuse -by providing access and breeding places for pests, which are a source of infections, and

• Noise - because of an increased passage of sound between rooms.

So, a single deficiency can have a greater or lesser effect on a particular hazard. Again, several deficiencies may be responsible for or contribute to the same hazard. For example:

• A badly maintained ceiling,

• A door that does not fit properly, and

• The absence of a smoke detector.

Each may contribute towards the single hazard of fire, helping smoke and flames to spread to other parts of the dwelling without being detected. Alternatively, there may be similar kinds of deficiencies in different places in the dwelling, which will have an effect on the same hazard. For instance, there might be dampness in the walls of several rooms within the dwelling. In this case the addition of those deficiencies of damp and mould growth will influence the assessment of the severity of the hazard, so the more widespread the damp and mould the greater the likelihood that harm could be caused.

Hazard Scoring and Banding:

The full system used by local authority officers uses numbers to represent the likelihood of an occurrence as the result of a hazard and to represent the possible spread of harm. In this way a score is produced to reflect the inspecting officer's judgement as to the severity of a hazard, but these are more conveniently put into bands covering ranges of scores. The bands, and the scores, allow the severity of very different hazards to be compared, for instance damp and mould, with carbon monoxide. Environmental Health officers will, in the main, is using a hand held computer to carry out this assessment. Having said this it is very likely that the subjective view of the individual officer will still have a considerable impact on the hazard scoring level in individual cases.

The bands range from A, scores of 5,000 or more, which is the most dangerous and life threatening, down to J, scores of nine or less, the least. More detailed information about these can be found in the HHSRS Operating Guidance, available on the DCLG website. The Act imposes a duty on local authorities to take appropriate action in relation to hazards falling in bands A - C, that is hazards with scores of 1,000 or over. Although not under a duty to do so, they are also able to act in relation to other hazards, those in bands D - J, scoring 999 or less.

Houses in Multiple Occupation:

The HHSRS is applied to any form of dwelling whether it is self-contained or not, in a large building or not. The local authority officer only has to examine the dwelling and the parts and areas, shared or not, which form part of that dwelling. When rooms and areas are shared, the check or assessment has to look at any possible increase in the likelihood and/or outcomes, which could happen as a result of the sharing. It must also take into account the number of other dwellings sharing rooms and areas. For instance, the chance of a risk of infection might be greater because of sharing, or a person living in the dwelling that is being rated may be under stress because of the sharing.

For example, the Guidance for Landlords from the Department for Communities and Local Government gives the following example of excessive heat:-

"It seems that many flats and bedsits can be affected as these are more likely to be

dwellings which:

• Are badly insulated;

• Those located directly under an un-insulated roof;

• Have only a south facing direction; and

• Have heating systems not under the control of the occupier."

Enforcement Action:

This part of the guidance offers a summary of the HHSRS enforcement guidance that has been given to local authorities. This is only meant to provide a straightforward introduction and explanation to the enforcement options. If more details are needed then see the full HHSRS Enforcement Guidance, or get advice from a competent expert.

An HHSRS assessment is the first step taken by local authorities if they believe a dwelling contains hazards. The assessment will inform the decision on the most appropriate action that an authority can take to remove or at least minimise any hazards.

The local authority will be guided by three main points when making an enforcement decision:

(a) The HHSRS hazard rating,

(b) Whether the local authority has a duty or power under the Act to take action depending upon how serious the hazard risk is, and

(c) The best way of dealing with the hazard having regard to the enforcement guidance.

The idea behind enforcement is to make the property safer for the range of potential occupants as well as for the current occupant. Whatever method of enforcement is chosen will be a means to this end. The local authority will need to take a view on whether hazards can or should be reduced, or removed entirely, or how they might be removed or reduced, and if they cannot, what other action is necessary.

Local authorities are encouraged to comply with the Enforcement Concordat and give clear advice to the owner or manager on what is required of them and to provide an opportunity to discuss the circumstances of a case before formal action is taken.

Local authorities are under a duty to take action in the case of category 1 hazards. If necessary, or if the owner/manager requests, the local authority may carry out any necessary remedial work themselves and reclaim the costs. They also have powers to take action in the case of all category 2 hazards, those which carry lower risks.

Local authorities also have the power to make a reasonable charge as a means of recovering certain expenses incurred in taking enforcement action. There is no statutory limit but the charge needs to be reasonable.

Appeals:

The Appeal jurisdiction will be exercised by "Residential Property Tribunals" (RPTs). The role of the RPT is, broadly speaking, as the adjudicators of appeals against the decisions and actions of local authorities in respect of unfitness. A fee of £150 is payable on some appeals, for example against an Improvement Notice, but in other cases, such as an appeal against emergency remedial action by a local authority no fee is charged. 

An example may help to understand the role of the Residential Property Tribunal.

"In respect of a category 2 hazard, the local authority may serve an improvement notice specifying the deficiencies giving rise to a hazard and requiring remedial action to be taken. Under Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Act, the person on whom the improvement notice is served, may appeal to the RPT. Paragraph 10 of the schedule makes it clear that the grounds of appeal are not limited. However, paragraphs 11 and 12 set out specific grounds namely:

(a) that another person, as owner of the specified premises ought to take the action concerned, or ought to pay the cost or part of the cost of that action;

(b) that instead of service of an improvement notice, the authority ought to have specified a different course of action, namely making a prohibition order, a hazard awareness notice or a demolition order.

On appeal the RPT may either confirm, quash or vary the improvement notice."

Sources for Further Information:

• The Letting Centre, website: www.letlink.co.uk
• The Department of Communities and Local Government - Further information is available on their website at www.dclg.gov.uk. 
• IdEA has very useful information and a handy, and revealing forum on its web site set up to provide support for local government officers dealing with the Housing Act 2004 at www.idea.knowledge.gov.uk
• The text of the Act is available with explanatory notes and the relevant Statutory Instrument are on the following website www.opsi.gov.uk
• Residential Property Tribunal Service - information on procedures and fees is available on their website at www.rpts.gov.uk

This summary is intended to assist landlords and letting agents to understand the effect of the Regulations.  It is not an authoritative interpretation - this is a matter for the courts. For more detail, you should refer to the text of the Regulations themselves.