Policy background
- Landlords are not currently required by implied covenant to ensure that properties they rent out are free of potentially harmful hazards. In the absence of an express term of the lease as to fitness for habitation, an offence is only committed where a landlord fails to comply with a local authority’s enforcement notice under the Housing Act 2004. The tenant is unable to take direct legal action to require the landlord to take action for a defective property – they are entirely reliant on the local authority doing so. As a result, it is possible for a landlord to rent out a property which potentially contains a range of hazards caused by the defects and, unless they are formally required by the local authority to rectify them, the landlord cannot be held responsible.
- The purpose of this Act is to improve standards in the private and social rented sectors by putting an obligation on landlords to keep their property in good condition and giving tenants the right to take legal action where their landlord fails to do so. The legislation will provide:
- an implied covenant in the lease that all landlords must ensure that their property is fit for human habitation at the beginning of the tenancy and throughout. They should do this by ensuring that their property is free from hazards from which a risk of harm may arise to the health or safety of the tenant or another occupier of the property at the start of the tenancy and keeping it in that condition for the duration of the tenancy; and
- where a landlord fails to do so, the tenant has the right to take legal action for breach of contract (covenant) on the grounds that the property is unfit for human habitation. The remedies available to the tenant include an order by the court requiring the landlord to take action to reduce or remove the hazard and/or damages to compensate them for the harm caused by the property which was not fit for human habitation.
