Criminal penalties for landlords who ignore repairs: what changed in 2026

Direct answer

The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 brought the most significant change to social housing oversight in a generation. It gave the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) new powers to inspect landlords without prior notice, issue unlimited fines, appoint new managers, and in the most serious cases pursue criminal prosecution. These powers are now in use. For tenants, this creates a regulatory route alongside the Housing Ombudsman complaints route and the civil disrepair claim route. Understanding how they work together gives you more options when your landlord fails to act.

What the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 did

Before the Act, the RSH focused mainly on the financial and governance health of registered social landlords. Whether a housing association was financially sound was its core concern. The condition of individual homes and the standard of service received by tenants was largely handled through the Housing Ombudsman and the courts.

The 2023 Act changed this by introducing new consumer standards that all registered social landlords must meet. These standards are enforceable by the RSH, not just through internal complaints or ombudsman decisions.

The four consumer standards that now carry regulatory weight are:

The Safety and Quality Standard. This requires landlords to provide safe homes and maintain them in a decent condition. It includes specific obligations around hazard identification, damp and mould, and compliance with Awaab's Law timescales.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. This requires landlords to be open with tenants, to provide information tenants need to hold the landlord to account, and to give tenants a meaningful voice in how services are run.

The Neighbourhood and Community Standard. This covers the management of communal areas, estates, and shared spaces.

The Tenancy Standard. This covers how landlords allocate properties, manage tenancies, and handle succession and mutual exchange.

What enforcement powers the RSH now has

The RSH now has a tiered set of enforcement tools it can deploy when a landlord is breaching consumer standards.

Inspections without notice. The RSH can inspect a landlord's properties, policies, and records without advance warning. This is a significant change from the previous regime, where inspections were largely scheduled and collaborative. Unannounced inspections are now used where there is cause for concern.

Improvement notices. Where the RSH finds a landlord is in breach, it can issue an improvement notice requiring specific steps to be taken within a defined timeframe. Failure to comply is itself a breach.

Performance improvement plans. The RSH can require a landlord to produce and follow a plan to improve its services. The plan is legally binding.

Manager appointments. Where a landlord's governance is so poor that it cannot be trusted to manage its own improvement, the RSH can appoint a manager from outside the organisation to oversee operations. This is a significant step that effectively removes control from the landlord's board.

Unlimited fines. The RSH can impose financial penalties with no fixed ceiling. This is a material change from the previous regime. In theory, a fine could be set at a level that has a significant financial impact on the landlord's operations.

Criminal prosecution. In the most serious cases, individuals within the landlord organisation, including board members and senior officers, can face criminal charges. This is designed to create personal accountability at governance level, not just organisational accountability.

The RSH publishes an enforcement action register on its website. This lists the landlords currently subject to regulatory notices and what the breach relates to. It is public and searchable.

How this differs from the Housing Ombudsman

The RSH and the Housing Ombudsman are separate organisations with different roles.

The Housing Ombudsman investigates individual complaints from named tenants about a specific landlord. Its findings are about what happened in your case and whether the landlord acted reasonably. Its orders are typically compensation plus a requirement to fix the problem.

The RSH looks at landlords at an organisational level. It is not the right place to take an individual complaint about a specific repair. Its role is to assess whether the landlord's systems, policies, and standards are good enough across its entire stock. Where it finds a landlord is systematically failing, it acts.

In practice, the two organisations share intelligence. A pattern of Housing Ombudsman findings against a single landlord can trigger RSH interest. A complaint that leads to a severe maladministration finding from the Housing Ombudsman may also contribute to an RSH inspection or formal notice.

How to report a landlord to the RSH

You cannot ask the RSH to investigate a single repair issue. But you can draw its attention to what you believe is a systemic failure.

The RSH has a "report a concern" process on its website. You can use this to tell the RSH that you believe your landlord is failing to meet consumer standards across the board. This is most effective when:

• You can point to patterns across multiple tenants or properties, not just your own experience
• You have evidence that the landlord's complaints handling is broken (for example, it is ignoring Stage 2 complaints)
• You believe the landlord's board is not taking tenant safety seriously at a governance level

Reporting to the RSH is not a substitute for using the Housing Ombudsman for your individual case. Both routes can be used simultaneously.

How this interacts with a disrepair claim

A disrepair claim is a civil action between you and your landlord. It is separate from both the Housing Ombudsman process and the RSH enforcement regime.

Bringing a disrepair claim does not prevent the RSH from investigating your landlord. RSH enforcement action against your landlord does not automatically resolve your personal claim.

Where RSH enforcement is relevant to a disrepair case is in the evidence it provides. If the RSH has found that your landlord is systematically failing on safety and quality standards, that is relevant context for a civil claim about the same landlord's failure to repair your specific home. It does not prove your case on its own, but it supports a pattern argument.

What the new enforcement regime means for tenants in practical terms

The practical significance of these changes is not that every disrepair problem will trigger a criminal prosecution. It will not. The criminal powers are reserved for the most serious cases.

The significance is that landlords now know there are consequences that go beyond paying out compensation to individual tenants. The RSH can inspect without warning, impose unlimited fines, and hold board members personally liable. That changes the incentive structure for landlords.

For tenants, the new regime adds weight to formal complaints. A well-documented complaint to the Housing Ombudsman, combined with a report to the RSH about systemic failure, is a more powerful combination than either alone.

What to do if your landlord is failing

If your social landlord has failed on repairs or damp and mould, you have at least three routes available simultaneously: the landlord's internal complaints procedure (required before the Housing Ombudsman), a report to the Housing Ombudsman, and a disrepair claim in court.

We can help you understand which route fits your situation and whether your case is strong enough to bring on no-win-no-fee terms. We assess cases for free.

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Sources: Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, legislation.gov.uk | Regulator of Social Housing enforcement action register.

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