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Complaining to Your Council About Housing
Environmental Health can inspect your property and force landlords to do repairs.
10 min readLast updated: 15 January 2025
Your local council's Environmental Health team can inspect your home and force your landlord to make repairs. This is a powerful tool - use it.
When to Contact the Council
- Your landlord ignores repair requests
- The property has serious hazards (damp, cold, unsafe electrics)
- You suspect the property doesn't meet legal standards
- You're being harassed or illegally evicted
What the Council Can Do
- Inspect your property
- Assess hazards using HHSRS (Housing Health and Safety Rating System)
- Issue an improvement notice requiring repairs
- Issue a prohibition order stopping part of the property being used
- Do emergency remedial work and charge the landlord
- Take prosecution action against the landlord
How to Complain
- Find your council's housing standards or Environmental Health team
- Describe the problems in writing with photos if possible
- Keep copies of any repair requests you've sent to your landlord
- Ask for a reference number and follow up if you don't hear back
Council action can block a Section 21 eviction in some cases. If you complained about conditions and then received Section 21, this may be retaliatory eviction.
Official Sources
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