The rules councils use to judge whether a rented home is safe changed this summer. On 23 June 2026, the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, better known as the HHSRS, was overhauled in England. The list of hazards has been cut from 29 to 21, and the old ten-band scoring has been replaced with three simple bands: High, Medium and Low.
For landlords, the headline is reassuring. Propertymark has been clear that the new regulations do not change the minimum standard a home has to meet. Homes still have to be safe. What has changed is how hazards are grouped, scored and described, and that matters the moment a tenant complains or a council officer knocks on the door.
The simplest protection is to find hazards before anyone else does. That’s why more landlords now book regular mid-term inspections during a tenancy, so problems like damp or a loose stair rail are spotted, dated and dealt with early.
What is the HHSRS?
The HHSRS is the risk-based system local councils use to assess hazards in homes. It sits under the Housing Act 2004 and applies to all residential property, but it matters most in the private rented sector, where it underpins most council enforcement.
An officer looks at how likely a hazard is to cause harm and how serious that harm could be. The result is a score. The most serious hazards place a duty on the council to act. Less serious ones give it the power to act.
What are the HHSRS changes in 2026?
The changes came in through the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. They apply in England only. The main points are:
- 29 hazards have become 21, with overlapping hazards merged. Carbon monoxide and other harmful gases, for example, now sit under a single air pollutants heading.
- The ten bands, A to J, have been replaced with three: High, Medium and Low. High hazards are what used to be called Category 1. Medium and Low cover the old Category 2.
- The four classes of harm have been renamed Extreme, Severe, Serious and Moderate. That’s a change of label rather than substance.
- The 21 hazards are arranged into four groups: physiological requirements, psychological requirements, protection against infection and protection against accidents.
Which hazards should landlords know best?
Most of the list will look familiar. It still covers damp and mould growth, excess cold, excess heat, falls on stairs, on the level and between levels, fire and explosions, electrical safety, water supply, crowding and space, noise and lighting.
In practice, a handful of hazards cause most of the trouble. Propertymark picks out falls, excess cold, damp and mould, and fire as the common risks. Excess cold catches out more landlords than you might expect, because a draughty, poorly heated home can score badly even when nothing is technically broken.
How does the HHSRS link to the Fitness for Human Habitation Act?
The HHSRS isn’t only a council tool. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 lets tenants take action themselves. It covers tenancies of under seven years granted since 20 March 2019, and since 20 March 2020 it has applied to all periodic tenancies in England.
If a home isn’t fit to live in, a tenant can take the landlord to court. The court can order repairs and award compensation. When deciding whether a home is fit, the court can look at the hazards in the HHSRS, alongside things like serious damp, poor ventilation and problems with the water supply or drainage.
What happens at an HHSRS inspection?
Councils usually inspect after a tenant complains, although they can also act on their own. The officer walks through the property, assesses each hazard and scores it.
Where a serious hazard is found, the council’s options range from a hazard awareness notice to an improvement notice that sets a deadline for works. In the worst cases, a prohibition order can stop part or all of a property being used. Ignoring an improvement notice can lead to a civil penalty or a prosecution. For landlords in Southport and across the borough, this is the job of Sefton Council’s private sector housing team.
There’s more to come. The Decent Homes Standard is due to apply to private rented homes from 2035, and one of its tests is being free of the most serious hazards. The Renters’ Rights Act also gives the government the power to extend Awaab’s Law, which sets deadlines for dealing with damp, mould and other hazards, to private renting. No start date has been confirmed yet.
Why regular property inspections matter more now
An HHSRS assessment is based on what the officer finds on the day. The landlords who stay out of trouble are the ones who found the problem first.
Waqas Shahban, founder of Capital Complete Solutions, an AIIC-accredited inventory and inspection firm based in Birmingham, says most hazards give plenty of warning.
“Most of the hazards on that list don’t appear overnight,” he says. “Damp starts as condensation on a bedroom window. A loose stair rail starts as a wobble. You catch these things when somebody actually walks round the property every few months, not when the tenant finally rings the council.”
He adds that the written record matters as much as the visit. “If a hazard does come up, you want a dated report showing when it was spotted and what you did about it. That’s the difference between a landlord who can prove they acted and one who can’t.”
A mid-term inspection sits between the check-in and the check-out. A trained clerk goes through the property room by room, photographs its condition and flags anything that needs attention, which leaves the landlord with a clear, dated record. Remember that tenants must be given at least 24 hours’ written notice before a visit.
Where does Legionella fit in?
Water supply is one of the 21 HHSRS hazards, but landlords also have a separate duty when it comes to Legionella, the bacteria behind Legionnaires’ disease. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says landlords must assess and control the risk under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the COSHH regulations.
The HSE is also clear about what the duty doesn’t involve. For most homes, the assessment doesn’t need to be in-depth, water testing isn’t usually required, and the law doesn’t require a “Legionella test certificate”. Many landlords can assess the risk themselves.
What matters is that it’s done and written down. Landlords who’d rather have it handled independently often turn to specialists such as Capital Complete Solutions, which carries out Legionella risk assessments across Birmingham and the West Midlands alongside its inventory and inspection work.
“It’s one of those duties landlords hear about once and then forget,” says Shahban. “For a typical rental, it isn’t complicated. But it needs doing, and you need the paperwork to show it’s been done.”
A simple HHSRS checklist for landlords
- Walk through each property with the 21 hazards in mind, paying close attention to damp, heating, stairs, electrics and fire safety.
- Deal with condensation and early signs of mould quickly, and put your response in writing.
- Keep the heating and insulation in good order to cut the risk of excess cold.
- Check that smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are working at the start of every tenancy.
- Record every inspection with dated photographs.
- Keep your gas safety record, EICR, EPC and Legionella risk assessment together and up to date.
- Always give tenants at least 24 hours’ written notice before a visit.
The 2026 changes don’t raise the bar. They make it clearer. Landlords who already keep on top of repairs and record what they do will notice very little difference. For anyone who hasn’t been inside a property since the tenant moved in, now is a good time to start.