Improvement Notices: For Private Tenants, Protection from s21 Eviction
As a tenant, ensuring that your rental property meets certain standards of health and safety is essential. In the realm of rental regulations, Improvement Notices play a crucial role in prompting landlords to address necessary repairs and upgrades to maintain a habitable living environment.
What is it?
An Improvement Notice is a formal directive issued by a local authority under the Housing Act 2004. It requires landlords to carry out specific works within a designated timeframe to rectify issues such as safety hazards or substandard living conditions. This does include damp and mould.
Who can be served with an improvement notice?
Most Improvement Notices are served on private landlords due to the living conditions experienced by their tenants.
Why would you use one?
An Improvement Notice gives you the opportunity to force your landlord to put your property in repairs so that it is a safe and habitable home for you and your family.
An Improvement Notice will set out precisely what works are needed, when they should start and more importantly when they should be done by.
What happens if a landlord still doesn’t do the work?
If your landlord fails to comply with the Notice, it is considered a criminal offence and landlords can be prosecuted in a Magistrate’s Court. Councils can also punish landlords who do not comply with financial penalties.
If the council is trying to ensure that improvement works actually get done to a property, the Housing Act 2004 also gives them the power to take action and do the works themselves.
What are your other options?
It is likely that if you are seeking to obtain an Improvement Notice then there is a serious issue with you home. It might damp and mould, or structural issues, leaks etc. As a result you might also have a housing conditions claim against your landlord.
Where you landlord has not complied with the Improvement Notice, you can apply for a rent repayment order against the landlord.
Effect on s21 Evictions
An improvement notice can also invalidate a section 21 notice served before or after the improvement notice under ‘retaliatory eviction’ rules.
