Indecent Homes?
The New Decent Homes Standards (DHS) were published last month after lengthy consultation. The National Housing Association has welcomed the Government’s ‘proportionate and pragmatic approach’ to deciding the Standards. While increased investment will be needed from housing associations, there will be time before 2035 for landlords to identify work required in their homes and make appropriate adjustments and plans, including for new social homes.
This may be just as well, because new research from Inventory Base has revealed that, if current rates of remedial work continue, up to 726,000 private rented homes will still fail to meet even current requirements.
The Renter’s Rights Act, which comes into force on 1 May this year, will see the DHS extend to the private rental sector. This recognises that too many tenants are still living in poor-quality properties.
The 2035 deadline for meeting the new standards is meant to give time for improvement and investment in housing stock for all public and private sector landlords.
As a bald summary (taken from the National Housing Association’s website), from 2035, all social housing must meet the following requirements:
Criterion A – A home must be free of the most dangerous hazards.
Criterion B – A home must be in a reasonable state of repair in terms of condition (age has been removed as a consideration here).
Criterion C – A home must provide core facilities and services: houses and flats must provide at least
- A kitchen with adequate space and layout.
- An appropriately located bathroom and WC.
- Adequate external noise insulation.
- Homes must also be equipped with child-resistant window restrictors, which can be overridden by an adult, on all windows which present a fall risk for children. In addition, blocks of flats must have an adequate size and layout of common entrance areas.
Criterion D – A home must provide thermal comfort by meeting the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard.
Criterion E – A home should be free of damp and mould.
The Government’s ‘English Housing Survey Briefing: Modelling a new Decent Homes Standard’ suggests that these requirements could lead to a bill of £26.5 billion for private landlords to ensure their properties meet the proposed standards. For the Social Housing sector, compliance with the new standards is estimated to cost £11.3 billion. This is split between £4.8 billion applying to local authority properties and £6.5 billion to housing association properties.
A forecast using historic trends in how quickly properties have been brought up to current standards suggests that by 2035, 726,000 privately rented properties are likely to fail the new standards.
Given that all private rented and social housing properties will be expected to meet EPC targets by 2030, landlords and housing associations are facing significant effort and costs to be compliant.
Meanwhile, tenants are concerned at the prospective 9 year wait for their properties to be made ‘decent’.