Housing disrepair claims in Wales

The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016

Wales has a distinct legal framework. The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 introduced “occupation contracts” and “contract-holders”, and sets out the landlord’s obligations to keep the dwelling in repair and fit for human habitation (FFHH).

What your landlord must do: sections 91 and 92

Two sections of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 carry most of the weight, and they work together.

Section 91 — fit for human habitation

The landlord must ensure the dwelling is fit for human habitation. This applies to a secure contract, a periodic standard contract, and a fixed-term standard contract made for a term of less than seven years. The duty bites on the occupation date — the day you move in — and continues throughout the time you live there. It is not a one-off check at the start.

Section 92 — keep it in repair

Separately, the landlord must keep the dwelling in repair. That covers the structure and exterior, and the installations for the supply of water, gas and electricity, for sanitation, for space heating and for hot water — kept both in repair and in proper working order.

The distinction matters. A home can be in repair and still be unfit; fitness is the wider test, and it is the one that reaches problems the older repairing duty struggled with.

The 29 matters that decide fitness

Fitness is not left to impression. The Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) (Wales) Regulations 2022 prescribe **29 matters and circumstances** to be considered, covering damp and mould, excess cold and excess heat, asbestos, carbon monoxide, lead, electrical hazards, fire, falls, pests, water supply, sanitation, food preparation facilities and lighting, among others.

If one of those is present to a degree that makes the home not reasonably suitable for occupation, the fitness duty is engaged. Recording which of them affects your home, and when you told your landlord, is the practical work.

Two things that make a home automatically unfit in Wales

This is where Wales departs most sharply from England. The 2022 Regulations set two requirements whose breach means the dwelling is **treated as unfit for human habitation** — not merely evidence towards it.

Alarms (regulation 5)

A smoke alarm must be present during each occupation period, in repair and proper working order, connected to the electrical supply and linked to every other electrical smoke alarm in the dwelling. Battery-only alarms do not meet this. A carbon monoxide alarm, also in repair and working order, is required in any room containing a gas, oil-fired or solid fuel appliance.

Electrical condition report (regulation 6)

The landlord must hold a valid electrical condition report throughout the occupation period. A report is valid for five years from inspection, or until any earlier date the report itself specifies. Copies must reach the contract-holder within 14 days of the start of occupation, within 14 days of a new inspection being completed, and within 14 days of the landlord receiving confirmation that remedial work is done.

If you have never been given an electrical condition report, or your smoke alarms are battery-only and not interlinked, that is worth raising in writing — it goes to fitness directly, not by argument.

Where to get help in Wales

• Use your landlord’s complaints procedure first — it is usually a precondition for escalating.
• For a community landlord (a council or housing association), the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales is the escalation route once the complaints process is exhausted. This is not the Housing Ombudsman, which covers England only.
• If you rent privately in Wales, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales cannot help — it deals with councils and housing associations, not private landlords. Your route is the council instead.
• Your local authority’s environmental health team can inspect serious hazards. For private renters in Wales this is the main enforcement route, not a secondary one.
• Rent Smart Wales registers landlords and licenses those who let or manage property in Wales. It is not just a directory: it can fine, prosecute, and make Rent Stopping Orders and Rent Repayment Orders against landlords and agents operating without a licence. If your landlord is unlicensed, that is worth raising.
• Citizens Advice and Shelter Cymru give free advice specific to Wales.

How a disrepair claim works in Wales

A claim is not meant to start at court. Wales has its own **Pre-Action Protocol for Housing Conditions Claims (Wales)**, separate from the England protocol — so guidance describing the England steps is describing a different procedure.

The protocol expects an early letter of claim setting out the disrepair, when it was reported and what effect it has had. The landlord is expected to respond within **20 working days** of receiving it, disclosing the repair and complaint records it holds for the property.

Most matters settle without a hearing. Two things decide whether a claim is worth anything: whether the landlord knew, and when. Both are questions about your records, which is why the dated written report matters more than any other single step.

The remedies are an order that the work be done, and damages for the period you lived with the disrepair after the landlord knew about it. There is no fixed tariff — see what disrepair compensation is based on.

How to report disrepair in Wales

There is no Awaab’s Law in Wales and no fixed statutory deadline to investigate. That makes your written report **more** important, not less: without a statutory clock, the date your landlord knew is the only fixed point the whole claim turns on.

Report it in writing even if you have already phoned, and keep a copy. Say what the problem is and where, when it started, what you have already reported and when, who lives in the home, and whether anyone is a child, elderly, pregnant, disabled or has a health condition the problem could affect.

If the problem touches fitness rather than just repair — damp, mould, cold, electrical safety, alarms — say so, and name it as a fitness issue under section 91. That is a different duty from the repairing duty in section 92, and it reaches problems the repairing duty does not.

Our repair letter templates work in Wales as well as England, and the chronology builder turns your notes into a dated timeline.

What if the landlord does nothing?

The order of escalation in Wales is: the landlord’s complaints procedure, then either the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales or your local authority depending on who your landlord is, and a legal claim last.

The split matters, and getting it wrong wastes months. If you rent from a **council or housing association**, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales is your escalation route once the complaints process is finished. If you rent **privately**, the Ombudsman cannot consider your complaint at all — your route is your local authority’s environmental health team, which can inspect and require action.

Rent Smart Wales sits alongside both. If your landlord or agent is operating without a licence, it can prosecute, and it can make a Rent Repayment Order — money back to you. That is worth raising in its own right, whatever else is happening.