What Is Your Landlord Legally Responsible For Fixing?

Something's broken and you're not sure whether to report it or fix it yourself. Or you've reported it and been told it's your problem.

Some of what your landlord must do is written into law and can't be signed away, whatever your tenancy agreement says. The rest depends on the agreement. Here's the line between them.

The short version

• Structure, exterior, plumbing, heating, gas and electrics are theirs by law. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and no agreement can remove it.
• Freestanding appliances usually aren't, unless the agreement or inventory makes them so.
• Safety duties are separate and absolute: annual gas check, five-yearly electrical inspection, working alarms.
• The home must be fit to live in throughout the tenancy, not just on day one.

What the law puts on your landlord

Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is the backbone. It requires landlords to keep in repair:

The structure and exterior

Walls, roof, foundations, floors, ceilings, windows, external doors, guttering, drains and external pipes. If rain is coming in, the wall is cracked, or a window won't close, that's theirs.

Installations for water, gas and electricity

Pipes, wiring, sockets, fixed light fittings, taps, stopcocks. The supply infrastructure of the property.

Sanitation

Basins, sinks, baths, toilets and their pipework.

Space heating and water heating

The boiler, radiators, immersion heater, and the hot water system. This is the one people most often need, and it is unambiguous.

None of that can be contracted out of. A clause in your agreement making you responsible for the boiler is not enforceable.

The safety duties, which are separate

These sit alongside repair and apply regardless of whose fault anything is.

• Gas safety, every 12 months. All gas appliances and flues checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer, with a copy of the certificate given to you within 28 days, or at the start of the tenancy.
• Electrical installation, every 5 years. An inspection by a qualified person, with a report you're entitled to see. You should get a copy within 28 days of the inspection.
• Smoke alarms on every storey used as living accommodation.
• Carbon monoxide alarms in any room with a fixed combustion appliance, other than a gas cooker.
• Alarms tested at the start of each tenancy, and repaired or replaced when you report them faulty.
• An EPC, provided before you commit, and the property must normally meet minimum energy efficiency standards.

If you've never seen a gas safety certificate, ask for one in writing. It's a criminal matter, not an administrative oversight.

Fitness for human habitation

Under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, a rented home must be fit to live in at the start of and throughout the tenancy.

Things assessed include damp and mould, structural stability, serious cold, fire safety, water supply, drainage, and facilities for preparing food.

This matters because it lets you take your landlord to court directly, without waiting for the council. What to do if your home is unfit sets out how.

What usually isn't theirs

Freestanding appliances

Section 11 specifically excludes "appliances for making use of" the supplies of water, gas and electricity. So washing machines, fridges, freestanding cookers and dishwashers are only the landlord's responsibility if the agreement or inventory says so.

An integrated oven wired into the electrics is a much better argument than a plug-in one. We've gone through this properly in who fixes a broken appliance and who pays for a broken oven.

Damage you caused

Fair wear and tear is never yours to pay for. Damage from misuse or neglect is. A tap washer failing is wear. A cracked basin from something dropped is not.

Minor upkeep

Changing light bulbs, replacing smoke alarm batteries during the tenancy, unblocking a plughole full of hair, keeping the garden reasonably tidy. Small, routine things a reasonable occupier deals with.

Your belongings

Their insurance covers the building, not your things. That's what contents insurance is for, and plenty of renters find that out after a leak from upstairs.

Timescales

There's no single statutory list for private renting, but this is the framework councils and courts work to:

• Emergency, 24 hours. No heating or hot water in cold weather, gas leak, dangerous electrics, major leak, no water, anything making the property unsafe. What counts as an emergency repair has the detail.
• Urgent, 3 to 7 days. A partial heating failure, a leaking toilet, a broken lock on an external door.
• Routine, up to 28 days. Dripping taps, minor plaster damage, a slow-draining sink.

Awaab's Law sets binding timescales for hazards in social housing from 27 October 2025. It doesn't apply to private renting yet, and isn't expected to before 2027, so don't quote it at a private landlord.

Reporting properly

1. In writing. Email, or a letter you keep a copy of. Phone calls disappear.
2. Be specific. "Boiler fires up then cuts out after two minutes, no hot water, started Tuesday" beats "boiler broken".
3. Say what it means. No heating with a baby in the house is a different urgency, and it should be treated as one.
4. Photograph it. Dated, and more as it develops.
5. Ask for a timescale, and keep every reply.

If nothing happens

1. Chase in writing, referring to your original report and its date.
2. Complain formally to the agent, then to their redress scheme. Free, independent, and they can award compensation.
3. Environmental health. Your council can inspect, assess hazards and serve an improvement notice that's legally enforceable. This is the strongest free route most renters never use.
4. Court, under the Fitness for Human Habitation Act or for disrepair. Take advice first.

What to do when a landlord won't repair walks through it, and who to complain to covers the order.

Don't stop paying rent. There's a lawful way to arrange a repair and recover the cost, and it isn't withholding. The procedure is in can I withhold rent for repairs, and getting it wrong creates arrears, which is now a mandatory ground for possession at three months.

One thing that changed

Since 1 May 2026 there's no Section 21 no-fault eviction. The old fear that reporting repairs would earn you a notice in return is largely gone, because a landlord now needs a specified ground and has to prove it in court.

Reporting disrepair is safer than it has been in decades. What the Renters' Rights Act changed has more.

The honest summary

Structure, exterior, plumbing, heating, gas and electrics are your landlord's by law and always will be. Safety checks are absolute. The home has to remain fit to live in.

Appliances and small routine upkeep usually aren't, and that's what the agreement decides.

Report in writing, be specific, keep records, and escalate through the free routes rather than paying for it yourself.

And if you spent a winter chasing a repair that never came, that belongs on the record. Reviewing your landlord and agent on Marks Out Of Tenancy is how the next tenant finds out before they sign.

---

This guide covers England and reflects the law as at August 2026, including the Renters' Rights Act in force from 1 May 2026. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differ. General information rather than legal advice. Sources: Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 11, GOV.UK, private renting repairs, Shelter.