A Practical Guide to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS)

The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) assesses 29 housing hazards and the effect that each may have on the health and safety of current or future occupants of the property. The HHSRS provides a way that hazards can be assessed and the best way of dealing with them identified. This book will be a helpful guide for landlords, tenants and Environmental Health and Enforcement Officers. This book is intended to set out clearly what the HHSRS is, how it works in practice and what can be done about it or to enforce the same. Landlords will also benefit from the chapters focussing on what the enforcement notices are, how to understand them and address them or otherwise set them aside through the courts or otherwise.

For tenants, the book is designed to explain the process by which they engage Environmental Health and Enforcement Officers and what the consequences of doing so can be for them, as well as the landlord, good and bad. There are pitfalls each of these sets of people ought to be aware of. Some are obvious, others less so. It is also a good book for lawyers who work in this field and want a concise, easy to read overview of the entire system and in legal and procedural terms how it operates in practice.