Environmental Health - Residential
Our Environmental Health Residential Team is responsible for investigating, maintaining, enforcing, and improving housing standards and conditions in the private housing sector. We can help people who are private tenants in Ashfield with things like getting repairs done and making sure that their landlords deal with housing defects (hazards) properly.
Please be aware that we do not deal with other tenancy issues such as reclaiming money from landlords or how much rent is being paid, however we can direct you to other services that may be able to assist with this.
What does the Environmental Health Residential Team do?
The Environmental Health Residential Team make sure that landlords and owners of properties in the Ashfield district meet their duties relating to housing standards.
These duties include:
- Making sure that houses and flats that are rented out are safe and free from hazards
- Carrying out housing repairs promptly, especially where these are urgent
- Providing enough Smoke and Carbon Monoxide alarms and repairing or replacing these if necessary
- Providing an Energy Performance Certificate and only setting up new tenancies if the EPC rating is E or above (this will also apply to existing tenancies from April 2020) - this is called the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES)
- Providing Safe Gas and Electrical supplies
- Lettings and Management Agents joining an approved redress scheme.
The Environmental Health Residential Team also deal with issues relating to statutory nuisance (relating to flats or houses) and some drainage issues.
What action can the Environmental Health Residential Team take?
The Environmental Health Residential Team provides advice and support to landlords and agents so that they know what is expected of them. We will also normally try to help tenants and landlords sort out issues between themselves, where possible.
If it is not possible to sort issues out informally, the Environmental Health Residential Team may take enforcement action.
Environmental Health Residential Intervention and Enforcement
The Environmental Health and Residential enforcement policy set out the rationale and standards of enforcement that can be expected from the Environmental Health Residential Team.
It also sets out the decision-making process, from the receipt of the initial referral, or complaint to conclusion of the case, which may involve court proceedings.