Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985: What Your Landlord Must Repair

Short answer: Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 makes your landlord legally answer for the structure, the outside, and the main installations of your home: water, gas, electricity, sanitation and heating. The duty covers almost every short tenancy in England, under 7 years. No tenancy agreement can remove it. It is one of the two main legal routes tenants use in disrepair cases. Wales runs its own law; see the Wales note below.

A renter learning only one piece of housing law should learn this one.

What Section 11 actually says

The full text sits in Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 on legislation.gov.uk. In plain English it puts three duties on the landlord:

1. Keep the structure and exterior in repair. That includes:

• The walls, the roof, the foundations
• Windows and external doors
• Drains, gutters and external pipes
• Anything that holds the building up or keeps the weather out

2. Keep installations for water, gas, electricity and sanitation in repair and in proper working order. That includes:

• Pipework, taps, the water supply
• Gas pipes and meters
• Electrical wiring, sockets and the consumer unit
• Basins, sinks, baths and toilets

3. Keep installations for space heating and water heating in repair and in proper working order. That includes:

• Boilers
• Radiators and central heating pipework
• Immersion heaters
• Fixed electric heaters

Anything here broken, leaking, or working badly falls to the landlord to fix, never you.

Which tenancies it applies to

Section 11 reads into every lease granted on or after 24 October 1961 for a term under 7 years. That covers almost every private assured tenancy, every rolling periodic tenancy, and almost every council and housing association tenancy. Writing it into the agreement is not needed. It sits there by law.

Contracting out is impossible too. A clause saying "the tenant is responsible for the boiler" holds no force against Section 11. The duty stays with the landlord.

What Section 11 does NOT cover

Here is where tenants often get caught out:

• Damage you caused yourself. A window broken kicking a football is your repair. A toilet you blocked is your repair. The law calls it acting in a "tenant-like manner".
• Cosmetic decoration. Peeling paint, scuffed walls, worn carpets: no redecoration is owed.
• Your own belongings. The landlord's insurance covers no sofa, TV, or clothes of yours. Get contents insurance for those.
• Improvements. Section 11 is a repair duty, not an upgrade duty. A working old boiler need not become a new one.
• The garden. Short of the tenancy saying otherwise, it usually falls to the tenant.

What about damp and mould?

Section 11 never names damp and mould. But most damp and mould traces to something it does cover: a leaking roof, broken guttering, failed pointing, a missing damp-proof course, condensation born of weak heating or extraction. A Section 11 cause means the landlord must put it right.

A second, parallel duty runs beside it. Section 9A of the same Act, added by the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, requires the home fit for human habitation through the whole tenancy. Damp, mould, poor ventilation and weak heating can all make a home unfit. See our guide on tenant rights when there is damp and mould.

For social tenants in England, Awaab's Law now adds named statutory timescales on top of Section 11.

How to use Section 11 in practice

The duty starts only once the landlord sits on notice of the defect. That means:

1. Report in writing. Portal, email, or letter. Never lean on a phone call.
2. Keep evidence. Photos, videos, dates, the original repair reference.
3. Allow reasonable time. Severity sets it: 24 hours for an emergency, days for a serious hazard, a few weeks for routine.
4. Escalate in writing. The formal complaints procedure, Stage 1 then Stage 2.
5. Take advice once a reasonable time passes with nothing put right.

For exactly what evidence to gather, see our housing disrepair evidence checklist.

What the law lets you claim

A landlord on notice who failed to repair in reasonable time may face a housing disrepair claim. It can ask for:

• An order forcing the works
• A rent reduction for the disrepair period
• Damages for inconvenience, distress, and damaged belongings
• Damages for worsened health, with medical evidence behind it

We state no amounts on this website. The value follows the severity, the length of the disrepair, and the toll on the household. A solicitor will say whether your case is worth pursuing.

Special situations

Common parts in a block. For shared stairwells, lifts, roofs and drains, the Housing Act 1988 extended the Section 11 duty by adding subsections. No notice is needed for defects in common parts the landlord controls.

Right to Buy and leaseholders. A Right to Buy long lease usually puts inside-the-flat repairs on you, with the freeholder, often the council, holding the structure and common parts through the lease. Section 11 rarely applies directly, though the lease often mirrors its duties. See our piece on Right to Buy and housing disrepair claims.

Wales. The legal framework in Wales has been substantially restructured by the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. Section 11 has been replaced for Welsh occupation contracts by fitness and repair duties built into the contract. The substance is similar but the route is different, take Welsh-specific advice.

Get help

A landlord in breach of Section 11, with nothing put right in reasonable time? Call Support for Tenants on 0800 030 4669 for a free assessment. We are a regulated company, not a law firm. We connect tenants with solicitors who run disrepair cases on a no-win-no-fee basis. No upfront cost. You only pay if you win, and the fee comes out of the compensation, not your pocket. If you don't win, you pay nothing.

Free alternative: Shelter (0808 800 4444) offers free housing advice.

Sources: Section 11, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (legislation.gov.uk); Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 (legislation.gov.uk); Private renting: repairs (GOV.UK); Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 (legislation.gov.uk).

Support For Tenants is a trading name of Cyntex Group Ltd, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as a Claims Management Company. FRN 1020217. Registered in England and Wales.