Decent Homes Standard

The Decent Homes Standard sets compliant standards for the conditions of social homes.

This information applies to social and affordable homes. The government’s Decent Homes Standard does not cover shared owners, private renters or leaseholders.

We’ve committed to spending a total of £9.2 billion on repairs and maintenance over the next 30 years to help ensure we're meeting the Decent Homes Standard.

The government is currently reviewing the Decent Homes Standard but the current detailed guidance can be found on their website (link below).

Here are the four main areas of criteria and what it means for you:

Fitness for habitation: This means your home must meet legal standards for housing, ensuring it’s free from serious health and safety risks (referred to as ‘category 1 hazards’).
State of repair: Your home should be in a reasonable state of repair. The Decent Homes Standard states that ‘key building components’ such as the roof, walls, windows, doors, chimneys and heating systems should be functional and not in need of immediate repair.
Modern facilities and services: Your home should have reasonably modern facilities and services which includes:

- A reasonably modern kitchen (around 20 years old or less)

- A reasonably modern bathroom (around 30 years old or less)

- An appropriately located bathroom and kitchen

- Adequate insulation against external noise (where external noise is a problem)

- Adequate size and layout of common areas for blocks of flats.

Thermal Comfort: Your home needs to provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort, which includes effective insulation and efficient heating (any type of heating system including gas, oil, LPG or solid fuel central heating, electric storage heaters, warm air systems, or underfloor heating).

How we check that your home meets the Decent Homes Standard?

We use data from our home surveys and other inspections we undertake as well as information from residents to check if a home meets the Decent Homes Standard. If a home doesn't meet the Decent Homes Standard, we will prioritise fixing it, either through repairs or by planning further investments in the future.

Please get in touch with us immediately if you think your home doesn't meet the standard or needs a repair.

Report a repair Get in touch

Related information:

Reporting repairs

We want to ensure your home has access to the heating and hot water your household needs.

Our home improvement programme

Find out more about the process involved if you want to make home improvements, plus detail on our approach to replacing and renewing parts of your home (including kitchens, bathrooms and roofs etc).

Regulatory standards

As a social housing landlord, we must deliver services in line with the regulatory standards set out by the Regulator of Social Housing.

Our commitment to transparency

Our transparency statement outlines why we think it's important to be transparent, what this means for you in practise and provides details on how you can request information from us.

We also provide access to information required as part of our commitment to delivering services in line with the regulatory standards.

Read our transparency statement

Your guide to the government’s Decent Homes Standard