The revised HHSRS: what private landlords need to know

Ruth lets a terraced house in England that was built in the 1930s. The tenants have been there for a few years, the gas and electrical certificates are up to date, and she has always dealt with repairs when they were reported. Then she read that the rating system councils use to judge housing conditions had been revised, and she realised she had never really looked at how it works.

That system is the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, usually shortened to the HHSRS. The government published a new landlord and agent guide to it on 23 June 2026 and updated it on 16 September 2026. This guide walks through what that official guide says, in the order Ruth would want to read it, and keeps to its wording wherever the detail matters.

What the HHSRS is and why it matters to a private landlord

The government describes the system like this:

The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) is a tool that is used to identify and assess risks to the health and wellbeing of people in their own home, whether rented or owned. It is based on the notion that all residential premises should provide a safe and healthy environment for any occupier or visitor.

It applies to every kind of home, but it matters to a private landlord for a particular reason. Councils use it when they take formal action about housing conditions under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, and the official guide puts the landlord’s position plainly: “There is no requirement for landlords and property agents to become trained HHSRS assessors, but landlords need to keep their homes free of Category 1 hazards, which will require a degree of familiarity with the HHSRS and what a Category 1 hazard looks like.”

So Ruth does not need to train as an assessor, but she does need to understand enough to recognise a serious hazard before a council officer does. The revision covers England only. In the guide’s words, “These updates only apply to England.” Wales has its own HHSRS regulations.

What changed in the revised system

The government says the system has been reviewed to make it more accessible, and it lists five significant changes:

• The number of hazards has been reduced from 29 to 21, with several hazards amalgamated to simplify the assessment process.
• Suggested baseline indicators have been introduced. They act as a checklist of reasonable standards that can be expected within a home to help identify deficiencies that should be assessed.
• The assessment process has been simplified by grouping the sixteen numerical likelihood of harm categories into 4 bands, ranging from very likely to very unlikely.
• Category 1 hazards (those scoring 1,000 or more as before) are now all in the High Band.
• A refreshed set of case studies (previously called worked examples) has been produced to help illustrate, and benchmark, how HHSRS assessments should be undertaken.

The first change is the easiest to see. The list has gone from 29 hazards to 21, because some closely related hazards have been merged. For example, falls on level surfaces and falls associated with baths and showers have been combined into a new hazard titled ‘falls on the level.’ The second change, the baseline indicators, is the most practical for Ruth, and it comes up again later in this guide.

How an assessor reaches a score

The full method is a 10-step process for trained assessors, set out in the statutory operating guidance. The landlord guide offers a shorter version, and the outline is easier to follow than the name suggests.

It starts with the property itself. The assessment starts with a full inspection of the property, including any garden, yard or external structure. The assessor looks for design, layout, repair or maintenance problems, and uses the baseline indicators as a reference point. The guide is clear that “anything that does not comply with the baseline indicators is a deficiency that needs to be assessed.”

Next, the assessor links each deficiency to the hazards it could cause. One deficiency can feed several hazards. The official example is a house without a properly installed heating system, which contributes to excess cold and also to damp and mould.

Then comes the likelihood of harm. Once the assessor has identified any deficiencies and selected the relevant hazard, they must now assess the likelihood of harm requiring medical intervention over the next 12 months. An important detail here is who the assessor has in mind. The assessor must consider the likelihood of harm for someone in the most vulnerable age group rather than the actual occupant. For falls on the stairs, for example, that means someone aged 65 or over. The point is that the home should be safe for anyone who might live in or visit it, not only the people living there today. Overcrowding is the one hazard assessed against the current household.

After that, the assessor considers how serious the harm would be if an incident happened. The guide uses four classes of harm, from moderate, such as a broken finger, up to extreme, which includes death. Part 2 of the operating guidance gives a national average spread across those classes for each hazard, and the assessor can adjust it where the situation justifies a change.

In this final part of the assessment process, the likelihood and spread-of-harm scores are put into a mathematical formula to calculate the hazard score. A score of 1,000 or more is a Category 1 hazard, in the High Band. Anything lower is a Category 2 hazard, split into Medium and Low bands. As each hazard is scored separately, it is possible for a property to have a mixture of Category 1 and 2 hazards at the same time.

The official guide includes a worked example that will feel familiar to Ruth: a single-family house built between 1920 and 1945 without a properly installed heating system. The assessor judges the likelihood of harm from excess cold to be far higher than average, and the formula produces a score of 31,145. That is a Category 1 hazard, so the council has a duty to act.

What a council can do

Local councils can inspect any property being used for residential purposes to determine whether action should be taken. Inspections often follow a complaint from a tenant or a neighbour, and some councils run proactive inspection programmes. A council can also serve a legal notice under section 235 of the Housing Act 2004 asking for documents such as the tenancy agreement and safety certificates. Failing to produce documents without a reasonable excuse is a criminal offence.

Once an assessment is complete, what happens next depends on the category. For Category 2 hazards (low or medium risk), the local council has discretion whether or not to take action. For Category 1 hazards (high risk), the local council must take action. The options range from a hazard awareness notice, which is advisory, to an improvement notice requiring work, a prohibition order restricting use of all or part of the property, and emergency action where there is an imminent risk of serious harm. The council must explain its decision in a statement of reasons served with each notice or order.

The guide is firm on one point: “A legal notice should never be ignored: non-compliance is a criminal offence.” There are costs to consider as well. When an enforcement notice is served, the local council can charge a fee to recover costs reasonably incurred in taking enforcement action. The guide says councils usually charge a flat fee, and that any charge must be reasonable.

Two financial penalties are worth knowing about. The first has its own section in the revised guide. Where the home is qualifying residential premises, other than the common parts of a building containing flats, section 6A of the Housing Act 2004 lets a council, when it first takes action on a Category 1 hazard, impose a penalty of up to £7,000 on the responsible person. That applies if, in the council’s opinion, it would have been reasonably practicable for that person to remove the hazard and they failed to do so.

The second applies when a landlord does not comply with an improvement notice. The council can prosecute, or it can impose a civil penalty of up to £40,000 for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026. For earlier offences the maximum is £30,000. The official guide also describes works in default, rent repayment orders and effects on property licensing, and anyone facing those should read it in full.

Appeals and talking to the council first

When a local council serves a legal notice or order, the recipient must be told they have the right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). The only exception is for a hazard awareness notice, which has no right of appeal as it requires no action to be taken. The time limits are strict: an appeal against an improvement notice must be lodged within 21 days of it being served, and appeals against most other enforcement action within 28 days. There is no charge for launching an appeal.

The guide also suggests speaking to the case officer before appealing, for instance to propose different remedial work or a longer timescale. A landlord keeps the right of appeal as long as those talks finish before the deadline. Anyone who receives a notice and is unsure of their position should speak to the council’s case officer or take advice from a qualified professional, because this guide cannot assess a particular property.

The self-assessment checklist is a practical first step

This is where Ruth can start. Appendix A of the official guide turns the baseline indicators into a shorter self-assessment checklist for landlords and agents. There is no obligation to conduct a baseline indicator self-assessment on your property. However, such a self-assessment does provide a useful mechanism for landlords and agents to assess property conditions and give tenants confidence in the standard of rented accommodation being provided.

The checklist is grouped into 19 sections:

• Structural condition
• Drainage
• Plumbing system
• Sanitary facilities: bathroom
• Sanitary facilities: kitchen
• Clothes drying facilities
• Space
• Internal doors
• External space
• Noise
• Security
• Walking surfaces
• Guards
• Lighting and services
• Heating and insulation
• Ventilation
• Moisture and contaminant control
• Pest management
• Fire safety

Each item is answered yes, no or not applicable, with space for comments. For an older house like Ruth’s, the heating and insulation section connects directly to the guide’s worked example on excess cold. Where an item is not met, that shortfall is, in the guide’s terms, a deficiency an assessor would go on to assess. The checklist does not produce a score, so it cannot tell Ruth whether a Category 1 hazard exists.

Where Awaab’s Law fits today

Awaab’s Law is easy to confuse with the HHSRS, so it helps to be precise about who it covers. It is a social housing duty at present. It came into force in the social rented sector on 27 October 2025, and the official guide explains it this way: “Phase 1 of Awaab’s Law currently applies to social rented housing and requires social landlords to address all emergency hazards and all damp and mould hazards that present a significant risk of harm to tenants within fixed timeframes.”

The official guide also sets out how the two differ, and why the HHSRS guide is still worth reading: “Awaab’s Law is different to the HHSRS, however, as it is focused on the individual circumstances of the actual tenant rather than a notional ‘vulnerable’ occupant or visitor. An HHSRS assessment is not required under Awaab’s Law, but this HHSRS guidance will be useful for landlords to familiarise themselves with the revised list of HHSRS hazards as preparation for the extension of Awaab’s Law to more hazards.”

For private landlords like Ruth, the position is still open. The government’s own words are: “We will consult in the coming months on how to apply Awaab’s Law to private rented housing.” In the meantime, the HHSRS is the system councils use when they take formal action under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, for private rented homes as for any other.

Keep the record alongside the other dates

A completed checklist, kept with the gas, electrical and EPC records, gives Ruth a dated account of the house’s condition and a list of anything to fix. The landlord compliance tracker holds those renewal dates in this browser and keeps Awaab’s Law for private renting in its watch panel. The Renters’ Rights Act guide covers the wider changes that sit around it.

Questions landlords ask about the revised HHSRS