Landlord repair responsibilities: the complete UK guide

Two pieces of law sit underneath almost every landlord repair duty. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 implies repairing obligations into virtually every tenancy under seven years, and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 requires the property to be fit to live in throughout the tenancy.

These can't be drafted away. A clause that tries to push Section 11 duties onto the tenant is unenforceable — the obligations stay with you regardless of what the agreement says.

Section 11 makes you responsible for the structure and exterior — roof, walls, windows, doors, gutters, drains and external pipes — and for keeping in repair and working order the installations for water, gas, electricity and sanitation (basins, sinks, baths, toilets) plus space heating and water heating.

In plain terms: if the boiler fails, the roof leaks, a drain blocks, or the wiring faults, that's your responsibility to put right. Roof and gutter issues in particular get worse (and dearer) the longer they're left, so they're worth quoting promptly.

These are the hard legal duties with specific documents and deadlines. Gas: an annual Gas Safety Record (CP12) for every gas appliance, by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Electrics: a five-yearly Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) by a qualified person, with any C1, C2 or FI faults remedied within 28 days. Alarms: a working smoke alarm on every storey and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fixed combustion appliance (excluding gas cookers), tested at the start of each tenancy — our alarm rules guide has the detail.

Miss these and you're not just non-compliant — in the case of gas and the EICR, you can also be blocked from regaining possession until you've complied.

You must have a valid Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to let a property, and under the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) it currently needs at least an E rating to be let lawfully. The government has signalled a move toward higher minimum ratings later this decade, so factor efficiency works into your longer-term capex plan.

An EPC is valid for ten years, so this is a once-a-decade document for most properties — but the rating it gives you increasingly drives what works you'll need to budget for.

Damp and mould have moved sharply up the agenda. Awaab's Law introduces legal timescales to investigate and fix serious hazards, and is being extended into the private rented sector alongside the Decent Homes Standard. The days of treating damp as the tenant's ‘lifestyle’ problem are over.

The safe approach is to investigate promptly, get an independent assessment of the cause (not a free survey from a firm selling chemical damp-proofing), and keep a record of your response.

The law says repairs must be done within a reasonable time once you're on notice of the problem — but it doesn't give a single fixed number, because reasonableness depends on severity. As a working guide: emergencies (no heating in cold weather, a major leak, no hot water, a dangerous electrical fault) should be tackled within roughly 24 hours; urgent issues within a few days; and routine repairs within around 14–28 days.

Awaab's Law is putting harder timescales around hazards specifically, so building a fast, documented repairs process now is the sensible bet.

Tenants are responsible for looking after the property in a ‘tenant-like manner’ — minor things like changing lightbulbs and smoke-alarm batteries, keeping it ventilated and reasonably clean, and not causing damage. Anything structural, any installation, and anything covered by the safety regimes above stays with the landlord.

Where a problem is caused by genuine tenant misuse you may be able to recover the cost, but the duty to carry out the repair still typically sits with you. When in doubt, fix it and resolve liability separately.

The cheapest version of all this is staying ahead: a renewal schedule for gas, EICR and EPC; periodic checks on roof, gutters and damp-prone spots; and a quick route to quotes when something does break. That's exactly what FixQuotes is for — send the job and get three quotes for the same work from vetted local trades, with a clear record of what you sourced and when.