Study reveals “unevenness” of policies, enforcement practices and recording across Greater Manchester councils when dealing with repair rights of tenants

The Housing Justice Network (HJN) has called for changes to the way local authorities conduct enforcement of tenants’ repair rights, making a series of recommendations for improvement in the sector.

In a report, which considered the ways in which local authorities in Greater Manchester enforce tenants’ repair rights through their local enforcement teams, HJN found that both enforcement procedures and data collection were “very uneven” across the 10 boroughs.

The network is a collaboration between Greater Manchester Law Centre, Greater Manchester Tenants Union and Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit.

The report outlined the three main enforcement mechanisms that tenants have available to them to ensure that repairs are carried out in their rented accommodation: disrepair proceedings in court, the Housing Ombudsman, and local authority enforcement.

HJN noted that “all three of these options can generate difficulties for tenants, which goes some way to explain why disrepair is so widespread in both private and social housing”.

Outlining the drawbacks of disrepair proceedings in court, the report said: “Disrepair compensation claims fall outside of scope for free advice and representation under the Legal Aid scheme, except in the cases where it can be used as a defence to possession proceedings."

It added that most commercial solicitors offering disrepair services focus on taking claims against social landlords, as it can be harder to recover costs and compensation from private landlords.

“This leaves many private tenants unable to find a lawyer to represent them unless they pay private rates – usually hundreds of pounds per hour for a solicitor’s time”, said HJN.

Looking at the Housing Ombudsman as an enforcement mechanism, the report noted that the Ombudsman’s recommended compensation amounts are “usually fairly low compared to an equivalent court claim”.

Furthermore, the Ombudsman “manages tenants’ expectations” in its FAQ’s, claiming that their average timescale for investigations is just under six months, but “more complex cases may take longer and we complete 99% of cases within 12 months.”

The Ombudsman cannot make landlords take immediate action regarding tenant’s concerns – as this remains the landlord’s responsibility.

The report noted that tenants can also report their landlord’s failure to repair to their local authority, which has statutory duties to inspect properties and powers to require a landlord to take action.

Due to the difficulty of accessing representation for a court claim, and the absence of an Ombudsman for private tenants, local authority enforcement is often the most immediately accessible option for tenants, said the report.

It added: “If a private landlord knows that the council, once informed, is likely serve Notice and take proceedings against them for disrepair, it may encourage them to do repairs in a timely manner.

“However, this relies on councils using their powers visibly, robustly and consistently, and creating accessible reporting systems that empower tenants to enforce their rights without unnecessary barriers, especially for those who speak English as a second language or are ‘non-internet users'."

According to research by Shelter, compiled by YouGov, three in four (76%) private renters in England have experienced disrepair in their home.

The report outlined data from FoI requests conducted by Greater Manchester Law Centre (GMLC) covering the rough period February 2022 to February 2023, in which it asked Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities to share information about their enforcement processes.

It made the following conclusions on the data:

• Both enforcement procedures and data collection are very uneven across the 10 boroughs, making it hard to compare across different Local Authorities to identify and share best and worst practice.
• Different Local Authorities appear to treat social tenants in different ways, with some directing social tenants away to their housing provider’s complaints process or the Housing Ombudsman. All Local Authorities received less reports from social than private tenants.
• Only some Local Authorities have publicly accessible, specific, written policies on housing disrepair enforcement practices.
• Improvement Notices were only served in around 3.9% of cases reported to the Local Authority across the 10 boroughs between February 2022 and February 2023, leaving the vast majority of private tenants vulnerable to revenge eviction.

The report found that where councils split the data between social and private tenants, councils were far more likely to get reports from private tenants.

In Bolton, which had the second highest number of reports of disrepair (604), 11.4% of reports were from social tenants. Tameside had the highest proportion of social tenants reporting disrepair, at 32.2% of all reports, the data revealed.

The report highlighted the fact that only 3.9% of reports from private tenants resulted in Improvement Notices across the year as “a cause for concern”.

Concluding on the data, GMLC said: “Our results suggest that the recording of reports and their outcomes could be improved in many local authority enforcement teams to help shape and improve enforcement action.

“The unevenness of policies, enforcement practices and recording across Greater Manchester shows up the need for a more coordinated approach, or enforcement risks becoming a postcode lottery.”

Finally, GMLC made 11 recommendations to “standardise best practice” across Greater Manchester boroughs, including:

1. Publish a publicly accessible and specific written policy on the enforcement of disrepair for both private and social tenants.
2. Review processes for accessing enforcement services to ensure they are accessible and easily obtained.
3. Improve recording practices, such as by keeping better records of: Demographics of tenants experiencing certain disrepair issues; Landlords who are coming up repeatedly in reports of poor housing conditions; Outcomes for tenants and whether repairs are completed; Tenant feedback on the accessibility and effectiveness of Local Authority enforcement services.
4. Take steps to co-operate between Local Authorities to identify landlords who may be breaching their repairing obligations to tenants across different boroughs.
5. Review and improve policies on the use of formal enforcement, such as Improvement Notices and court action.
6. Standardise the use of Improvement Notices across the 10 boroughs so that tenants can know when to expect that a Notice will be served that may protect them from retaliatory eviction.
7. Review whether existing staffing levels are appropriate in light of the scale of disrepair in each borough.
8. Take steps to become more proactive about enforcement, including by, for example, identifying areas where housing is of a poor quality and making visits to ascertain whether landlord action is required before being approached by tenants.
9. Seek training, such as that available from the organisation Justice for Tenants, to improve enforcement practices.
10. Review ways to fund an expansion in enforcement activities.
11. Work more consistently and openly with housing advice providers and support organisations to enable early intervention on issues that may be exacerbated by inaction (e.g. result in a worsening of tenants’ health or in a retaliatory eviction).

Lottie Winson