Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985: what your landlord must repair

What Section 11 actually says

Where Section 11 applies, it implies repairing obligations into the tenancy whether or not the tenancy agreement uses the same words. There are three limbs.

Structure and exterior — section 11(1)(a)

The landlord must keep in repair “the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house (including drains, gutters and external pipes)”. In practice that can reach walls, roofs, foundations, external brickwork, structural floors and ceilings, external drainage, guttering and downpipes. Whether a particular item counts as structure sometimes needs closer examination — plasterwork is the important example, and it is dealt with below.

Water, gas, electricity and sanitation — section 11(1)(b)

The landlord must keep in repair and proper working order the installations for the supply of water, gas and electricity and for sanitation, “including basins, sinks, baths and sanitary conveniences, but not other fixtures, fittings and appliances for making use of the supply of water, gas or electricity”.

That closing phrase does a lot of work. A cooker, fridge, washing machine or dishwasher is generally an appliance that uses the supply rather than part of the installation supplying it, so this limb does not automatically make the landlord responsible for it. That is not the end of the question — the tenancy agreement or another obligation may still cover it. “Section 11 does not reach it” is not the same as “nobody is responsible for it”.

Heating and hot water — section 11(1)(c)

The landlord must keep in repair and proper working order the installations for space heating and heating water — typically a landlord-provided boiler, radiators and heating pipework, the hot water cylinder or immersion heater, and the flues and controls that make them work. A boiler that repeatedly breaks down is a textbook Section 11 problem. A system that works exactly as designed but was never adequate is a different question, and the next section explains why.

Repair is not the same as improvement

The most common misunderstanding about Section 11 is this: “something is seriously wrong with my home, so my landlord must be in breach.” Not necessarily, and the reason is the word repair.

Repair normally means putting right something that has deteriorated, been damaged, or fallen from an earlier and better condition. Section 11 does not create a free-standing duty to redesign a property that was poorly designed from the day it was built. A home can therefore have a serious housing-condition problem without that problem falling within Section 11 at all.

Quick v Taff-Ely Borough Council [1986] QB 809

The tenant’s council house suffered severe condensation — water running down the walls, mould, rotting woodwork, a persistent smell of damp. Nobody suggested the conditions were acceptable. The works needed to solve it involved replacing metal-framed windows and insulating cold concrete lintels.

The Court of Appeal held that this was not “repair”. The covenant was to repair the structure and exterior; it did not require the landlord to improve parts of the building that were not themselves out of repair simply because their original design was inefficient. Condensation is not, without more, within the repairing obligation unless it is caused by, or causes, actionable disrepair.

But damage caused by the defect can still count

This is where the distinction becomes useful rather than merely discouraging. Section 11 may not require a landlord to redesign a building because an inherent feature causes condensation. But if that condensation physically damages something the landlord must keep in repair, the repairing obligation can be engaged after all.

Grand v Gill [2011] EWCA Civ 554

The tenant suffered serious damp and mould, with several contributing causes including inadequate heating, condensation, water ingress and deterioration of the internal plaster. The question for the Court of Appeal was whether plaster applied to walls and ceilings formed part of the “structure” for Section 11 purposes. It held that it did — plaster forming part of, or applied to, walls and ceilings is part of the structure — departing from the earlier view in Irvine v Moran.

So the cause of a housing problem and the damage that problem produces are two different legal questions. A landlord may be right that original cold bridging is not itself disrepair. That does not answer what has happened to the plaster, the heating, the guttering or the window frames since.

A better question than “is my home in bad condition?”

Treating “damp”, “mould” or “cold” as a single defect makes a claim harder to assess and easier to dismiss. Break it down instead. First: what exactly has deteriorated?

• Has plaster broken down?
• Has a roof covering failed?
• Has a pipe begun leaking?
• Has a boiler stopped working properly?
• Has a window frame rotted?
• Has guttering broken or blocked?
• Has brickwork or pointing deteriorated?

Then: is that item within one of the three Section 11 limbs? Two clear answers are worth far more than a general complaint that the house is in a poor state.

Does Section 11 cover damp and mould?

Sometimes — but not automatically, because damp and mould are symptoms rather than defects. The legal question is usually what caused them.

• A leaking roof the landlord is responsible for: Section 11 may well be engaged.
• A broken gutter causing penetrating damp: gutters are named in the statute expressly.
• A failed external pipe: external pipes are named expressly too.
• Heating that is out of repair or not in proper working order: potentially limb (c).
• Plaster damaged by the damp: potentially structural disrepair, following Grand v Gill.
• Condensation caused only by the original design: much harder, for the reasons in Quick.

Does Section 11 cover pests?

Not because pests are present. An infestation is not itself disrepair. But the physical defect letting them in very often is — a hole in an external wall, broken drainage, damaged pipework, defective flooring, a gap left by deteriorated brickwork.

So the productive question is rarely “please deal with the mice”. It is: what defect is allowing them in? A mouse is not part of the structure. A deteriorated hole in an external wall may be. Our page on pest and vermin claims works through the entry routes.

Flats and common parts: beyond your own front door

Section 11 is not always confined to defects inside your flat. Section 11(1A), inserted by the Housing Act 1988, can extend the covenant to other parts of the building in which your landlord has an estate or interest, and to installations outside your home that serve it. Section 11(1B) limits that extension to cases where the disrepair affects your enjoyment of the dwelling or of common parts you are entitled to use.

• A communal roof leaking into your flat, where your landlord has the required interest in it.
• A shared heating installation serving your home but sitting outside it.
• Communal pipework causing problems inside the dwelling.

There is a real limit, and Grand v Gill itself illustrates it: that tenant’s water ingress came from a roof and guttering her landlord had no relevant interest in, because he held only a long lease of the flat. “The communal roof is leaking into my flat” does not by itself answer “which legal person has the duty to repair it?” In leasehold blocks that needs checking rather than assuming.

Does my landlord have to know about it first?

For defects inside the premises you rent, yes — usually. The landlord ordinarily needs to know about the need for repair, and then to have a reasonable opportunity to deal with it. That is why reporting in writing matters so much.

O’Brien v Robinson [1973] AC 912

A ceiling collapsed, and the House of Lords considered when the obligation to repair actually arises. The covenant is not an absolute guarantee that a property can never become defective without the landlord knowing. For a defect within the demised premises, the landlord ordinarily needs information about the problem before liability for failing to repair arises.

You do not have to be the one who told them

What matters is the landlord’s knowledge, not whether you personally sent a letter. A landlord may have information from an inspection of their own, a contractor who attended, a housing officer’s record, or another responsible source — anything that would put a reasonable landlord on inquiry as to whether repairs were needed. This is often described as actual or constructive knowledge.

Nor do you have to diagnose the cause. If you report that water comes through the bedroom ceiling whenever it rains, you have given the landlord something to investigate, even if you have no idea whether the culprit is the roof covering, the flashing, the guttering or a pipe. Equally, a landlord whose own surveyor recorded widespread damp cannot easily say nothing was reported.

How long does a landlord have?

Section 11 sets no universal deadline. Once the landlord has the relevant knowledge, they must be allowed a reasonable time to investigate and carry out the work — and what is reasonable depends entirely on the defect. Exposed dangerous wiring, total loss of heating in a cold snap, an active major leak and a minor external defect cannot sensibly share a timetable.

• How serious the defect is, and whether anyone is at risk.
• What investigation is needed before the cause is known.
• Whether parts or specialist contractors have to be sourced.
• The effect on the household, including anyone vulnerable.
• Whether temporary works could reduce the harm meanwhile.
• What the landlord already knew, and for how long.

There is no general Section 11 rule that every repair must be done within 28 days, whatever you may read elsewhere — see what a reasonable time actually means. Social landlords in England may separately be subject to the statutory timescales under Awaab’s Law — see our page on Awaab’s Law.

Access: the landlord’s right, and its limits

Section 11(6) provides that where the repairing covenant is implied, the tenant is treated as agreeing that the landlord — or someone authorised by the landlord in writing — may enter the premises to view their condition and state of repair, “at reasonable times of the day and on giving 24 hours’ notice in writing to the occupier”.

That cuts both ways, and both matter. It is not permission for unannounced entry: the statutory inspection right requires written notice and a reasonable time. Different rules can apply to genuine emergencies.

But a tenant who reports serious disrepair and then refuses every reasonable appointment creates an obvious problem. The landlord needs the chance to inspect, diagnose, quote and carry out the work. It is difficult to complain that a landlord failed to investigate while preventing the investigation. If an appointment does not suit, offer an alternative — and keep a record of what was offered and what happened.

What if the landlord says I caused it?

Section 11(2)(a) preserves the tenant’s own responsibility for anything arising from the duty to use the premises in a tenant-like manner — the standard set out in Warren v Keen [1954] 1 QB 15. In ordinary language, you are expected to take reasonable care of the home and not to damage it deliberately or carelessly.

There is a real difference between a pipe corroding with age, a boiler component failing through ordinary use or pointing weathering over decades, and a door damaged deliberately, a fixture broken through misuse, or a drain blocked by something that should never have gone into it.

What tenant-like manner does not do is turn you into the landlord’s maintenance department. It does not require you to carry out the structural, heating, plumbing or exterior repairs that Section 11 places on the landlord. If you are told you caused the problem, ask what evidence supports that, and keep your own photographs and correspondence.

What else Section 11 does not require

Section 11(2) sets out further limits. The covenant does not require the landlord to rebuild or reinstate the premises where they are destroyed or damaged by fire, tempest, flood or other inevitable accident. Nor does it require the landlord to keep in repair anything the tenant is entitled to remove from the dwelling.

The accident exception should not be over-read. Rain entering because a roof covering has deteriorated is a very different question from destruction by a catastrophic external flood, and “water was involved” does not put a defect outside Section 11.

Can my tenancy agreement make repairs my responsibility?

Generally no. Section 11(4) provides that a covenant by the tenant to repair the premises “is of no effect so far as it relates to the matters mentioned in subsection (1)(a) to (c)”. Section 12 goes further and restricts contracting out of Section 11 altogether, so a clause simply excluding or limiting the landlord’s statutory duties is usually ineffective unless the statutory procedure for modification has been used.

Read your tenancy agreement — but do not assume a clause overrides the Act. The agreement can give you more than the statutory minimum; it cannot give you less.

Does the age of the property matter?

It does, but it is not a defence in itself. Section 11(3) says that in determining the standard of repair required, “regard shall be had to the age, character and prospective life of the dwelling-house and the locality in which it is situated”.

So Section 11 does not require a Victorian terrace to be turned into a new-build. What it does not do is make the obligation disappear. “It is an old house” is not an answer to “the roof is leaking because the covering has failed”.

Does Section 11 apply to every tenancy?

No, and the familiar shorthand needs care. Section 13(1) is the starting point: Section 11 applies to a lease of a dwelling-house granted on or after 24 October 1961 for a term of less than seven years. But section 13 also carries further provisions extending and excluding that scope, and sections 13 and 14 together govern the detail.

For most ordinary tenants, Section 11 will be one of the central repairing duties. If you hold an unusual long lease, a shared-ownership arrangement or a specialist tenancy, do not assume the ordinary rule applies without checking.

Wales: Section 11 does not apply to an occupation contract

This is not a matter of interpretation. Section 13(1ZA) of the Act says in terms: “In the case of a dwelling-house in Wales, section 11 does not apply if the dwelling-house is subject to an occupation contract”, and directs the reader to Part 4 of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 instead.

For a Welsh occupation contract the duties sit in sections 91 (fitness for human habitation) and 92 (repair) of the 2016 Act. If your home is in Wales, use our Wales guidance rather than applying this page to your situation.

Section 11 and fitness are not the same duty

This is the most important relationship on the page. Section 11 asks whether something the landlord is responsible for has fallen out of repair or is not in proper working order. The fitness duty asks a broader question: is this home reasonably suitable to be lived in as it stands?

A home can be both unfit and in disrepair

A roof deteriorates, water penetrates, plaster breaks down, an ageing electrical installation becomes dangerous, the heating fails — and the resulting conditions make the home unsuitable to occupy. Both duties may be in play, and there is no need to choose between them.

A home can be unfit without any Section 11 disrepair

This is the gap Quick v Taff-Ely exposes. A property badly designed from the start, with severe condensation, inadequate original ventilation and excessive cold, but no damaged element requiring repair, may defeat a repairing claim entirely. That is not a statement that the law finds such a home acceptable. It is a statement that you have to look somewhere other than Section 11.

Worked examples

“My boiler has completely stopped working.”

Squarely within limb (c) — installations for space heating and heating water.

“My gutters are broken and the bedroom wall is soaked.”

Limb (a): gutters are named expressly. Any damage the water has caused to structural plaster may be a second head of disrepair.

“My flat has always had terrible condensation.”

Do not assume Section 11 answers it. If the cause is inherent design rather than deterioration, Quick may bite. But check for associated disrepair — damaged plaster, failed heating, rotted windows, leaks — and consider the separate fitness duty.

“The mould has destroyed the plaster.”

That changes the analysis. Following Grand v Gill, plaster applied to walls and ceilings can be part of the structure, so its deterioration can be actionable even where the condensation itself is not.

“There are mice coming through a hole in the external wall.”

The mice are not structural disrepair. The deteriorated hole may be.

“The communal roof is leaking into my flat.”

Section 11(1A) may extend the covenant beyond your own flat — but only if your landlord holds the required estate or interest in that part of the building. Check who actually controls the roof.

“My washing machine broke.”

Limb (b) does not automatically cover it just because it uses water and electricity. Check who owns it and what the tenancy says.