The council inspection is getting more likely: what an HHSRS visit actually assesses

Most landlords prepare for a council visit by checking their certificates are in date. Then the inspector walks past the folder and looks at the walls.

Worth understanding right now, because the visit is getting more likely, not less. The latest figures show council inspections of rented homes rising across the last two reporting years. The line the trade ran was that fines go uncollected. The number that matters to you is the other one: the knock is more probable than it was.

And what happens at that knock changed on 23 June. In England the Housing Health and Safety Rating System was rebuilt, not tidied: the hazard list dropped from 29 to 21, the old A to J bands became three (High, Medium, Low), and the operating guidance underneath was replaced. Knowing the headline "21 hazards" is not the same as knowing the method moved. Wales did not follow. There, fitness is still assessed against the 29 matters under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act and its fitness regulations. Same discipline, different list. Get the jurisdiction right before you self-assess.

Here is the part most people miss. A certificate proves a document exists. An inspection assesses the condition of the property. An inspector scores what is in front of them, not what is in your file. A gas record in date does not answer excess cold. An electrical report does not answer damp and mould. The system rates the home, so the home is what to walk first.

A self-walk before they knock

Do this in the property, not from the paperwork.

1. Damp and mould. The one that lands most often. Look behind furniture, around windows, in bathrooms. Record the cause, not just the spot. A reading is not a diagnosis.
2. Excess cold. Heating that works, insulation, draughts, and whether the tenant can afford to run it. Cold because the system cannot heat it is a condition issue, not a habit.
3. Fire risk. Escape routes clear, alarms present and working on the day, doors that close. In England the hazard now expressly covers fumes, explosion and fire-related collapse, so read it wider than a smoke alarm.
4. Falls. Stairs, handrails, level changes, baths, lighting. The unglamorous hazard that quietly scores high in older stock.
5. Anything the tenant has reported. An open repair is the easiest thing for an inspector, or a solicitor, to stand up. Record the report, the action, and the date it closed.

What turns a walk into evidence: dated photos of each room, a written note of condition against each hazard, and what you flagged, asked for and resolved. The point is not to declare the property fine. It is to produce, in order, what you found and what you did.

England and Wales, quickly.

England: the rebuilt HHSRS from 23 June, 21 hazards, High/Medium/Low, enforcement under the Renters' Rights Act. Wales: the Renting Homes (Wales) Act, the 29 fitness matters, Rent Smart Wales, fit for human habitation.

The takeaway.

Automation can chase a certificate to its renewal date. It cannot walk the property. The inspection rates condition, and condition is the thing a paperwork tracker never sees. Walk your worst homes first, record as you go, and the visit stops being a surprise.

This is not legal advice, and the inspector keeps the scoring. But the walk is the part you can do this week.

That is what we are building at HouseComply: the inspection you already do, captured on site and organised against an England and Wales rule library, so the property's condition is evidenced before anyone knocks.

If a council inspector walked your worst property tomorrow, which hazard would you want to have looked at first?