Expert Housing Disrepair Claims
& Compensation

Hundreds of thousands of social housing tenants across England and Wales are living in homes that are not safe or fit to live in. Black mould spreading across bedroom walls, a boiler that has been broken since before Christmas, a roof that has leaked through two winters. If your council or housing association has left you in conditions like these, you have enforceable legal rights, and you can use them to force the repairs through and to claim compensation for what you have put up with.

Housing Repair Solutions acts for council tenants, ALMO tenants and housing association tenants only. If you rent from one of those landlords, read on, or speak to our team and we will tell you within 24 hours whether you have a case worth running.

What Counts as Housing Disrepair Under UK Law

Housing disrepair covers any condition in a rented home that falls below the standard your landlord must maintain by law. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory repair duty on your landlord to keep the structure and exterior in repair, to keep the installations for water, gas, electricity and sanitation in working order, and to keep your heating and hot water working properly. In Wales, the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 adds a separate fitness for human habitation duty on top of that, which is why Welsh tenants often have a stronger route than they realise. When your landlord fails either duty, you can bring a claim.

The Disrepair Issues We Handle Most Often

Every case we take runs on the same legal framework, but the evidence differs with the problem. These are the issues our tenants come to us with:

• Damp and black mould caused by structural defects, failed damp proofing or inadequate ventilation
• Broken boilers, failed heating and unsafe electrics, including exposed wiring and dead sockets
• Leaking roofs, rotten windows, blocked gutters and drains
• Flooding and persistent water leaks that ruin flooring, plaster and belongings
• Rat, mouse and insect infestations your landlord has failed to treat properly
• Structural defects such as cracking, subsidence damage and failing brickwork
• Illness and injury caused by disrepair, including asthma, chest infections and falls

How Awaab's Law Changed Things for Tenants

The most important legal development in a generation for social housing tenants in England is Awaab's Law, introduced under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act. It is named after Awaab Ishak, the two year old boy who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to black mould in his family's social housing flat in Rochdale. It sets hard deadlines for social landlords to investigate and fix damp, mould and other serious hazards, rather than leaving reports to drift.

That matters for your claim. If your social landlord is ignoring your damp and mould reports, they are no longer only breaching a repair covenant, they are potentially breaching a specific statutory timescale. We use that, alongside your reporting history, to put real pressure on the landlord early.

Council Housing Disrepair Claims Explained

Council tenants make up a large share of the people we help, and claims against a council have one genuine advantage. Councils and ALMOs run formal repair logging and complaints systems, so there is almost always a paper trail. Every job reference, every missed appointment and every stage one complaint response becomes evidence. When you have reported a repair in writing and the council has not acted within a reasonable time, the foundation of your claim is already built.

The same applies to housing association tenants. We regularly act against large providers including Clarion, Peabody, Sanctuary, The Guinness Partnership and Southway Housing Trust, and we know how each of them handles a letter of claim.

Many tenants we speak to have been chasing the same repair for months or years. Multiple reports, emails, a complaint that went nowhere. If that is you, exhausting the landlord's complaints procedure also opens the Housing Ombudsman route, and we will tell you which of the two gets you a fixed home faster. From there we take over entirely, draft the formal correspondence, instruct an independent surveyor, gather medical evidence where illness is involved, and push for both the compensation and a binding schedule of works.

What Compensation Can You Receive

Compensation in a housing disrepair case usually has three parts. General damages for the discomfort, inconvenience and distress of living in the conditions, normally calculated as a percentage of the rent you paid over the period of disrepair. Special damages for money you actually lost, such as ruined carpets, furniture, clothing or a higher electricity bill from running dehumidifiers. And a personal injury element where the disrepair caused or worsened a health condition.

Awards vary widely with the severity and the length of time you were left in the property, so be cautious of any firm quoting you a figure before seeing your evidence. Our housing disrepair compensation calculator gives you a realistic starting range in under a minute, and our client reviews show the kind of outcomes we have secured. One point worth knowing early: the limitation period is generally six years for the disrepair itself and three years for a personal injury element, so delay genuinely costs you money.

The No Win No Fee Promise and Why It Matters

Most tenants who never claim give the same reason, which is cost. Legal action feels expensive and risky, so the phone call never happens. That is exactly why we run every case we accept on a No Win No Fee agreement.

If we do not win, you pay us nothing. We carry the legal costs and disbursements, including the surveyor. If we do win, the success fee is agreed with you in writing before we start and is capped as a percentage of your compensation. In most housing disrepair cases the landlord is also ordered to pay a substantial share of the legal costs, which reduces what comes out of your award.

Who We Can and Cannot Help

We act for tenants of councils, ALMOs and housing associations in England and Wales. We do not take claims from private renters, leaseholders, shared ownership buyers or homeowners, and we do not cover Scotland or Northern Ireland. Telling you that now saves you a week of waiting. If you are a support worker or caseworker referring a tenant, our referral page for social workers, schools and charities sets out how to send a case through.

Start Your Claim Today

Starting is free and takes a few minutes. Fill in the form on this page, call 07460 754041, or email info@housingrepairsolutions.co.uk. We will review your situation within 24 hours and tell you honestly whether the case is worth running.

You do not need a solicitor already, a surveyor's report, or a neat folder of evidence. Most tenants come to us with nothing more than a decision that they will not accept these conditions any longer. That is enough to start. Find out who we are, then tell us what is wrong with your home.