Almost every legal dispute about repairs in a UK rented home comes back to a single clause: Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. It is old, it is short, and it is non-negotiable. A landlord cannot contract out of it, a tenancy agreement cannot override it, and forty years of case law have fleshed out what it actually means in practice. This guide is for tenants who want to know what their landlord owes them, and for landlords who want to avoid breaching duties they did not realise they had.
What Section 11 actually says
Section 11 implies three repair duties into every short residential tenancy (under seven years). The landlord must keep in repair:
The structure and exterior of the property - including drains, gutters, and external pipes.
The installations for water, gas, electricity, and sanitation - basins, sinks, baths, toilets, and related pipework.
The installations for space heating and hot water - boilers, radiators, and associated systems.
What counts as "structure and exterior"
Case law has pushed this category wider than a literal reading suggests. Structure and exterior includes:
Walls, roof, chimneys, and foundations
External doors, window frames, and external plasterwork
Gutters, downpipes, drains, and soil pipes
Paths and steps forming the normal means of access
Internal plasterwork forming part of the structure (a disputed edge - but increasingly included)
What falls under "installations"
The installations duty is narrower. It covers the fixed systems for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, heating, and hot water. In practice:
Boilers, hot water cylinders, and radiators
Cold and hot water pipework
Gas supply pipework and meters
Electrical wiring, consumer units, and fixed light fittings
Basins, sinks, baths, toilets, and immediate pipework
What does NOT fall under Section 11
Understanding the edges matters as much as the centre. Section 11 does not cover:
Tenant's own possessions or fittings - freestanding appliances, furniture, curtains.
Cosmetic decoration - redecorating after a repair is a separate question unless the tenancy agreement says otherwise.
Damage caused by the tenant - fair wear and tear is still the landlord's, but deliberate or negligent damage is the tenant's.
Garden upkeep and garden features that are not a normal means of access.
Improvements - a working single-glazed window is "in repair" even if the tenant wants double glazing.
The repair clock: when is a repair "late"?
Section 11 requires repairs to be carried out within a reasonable time. What counts as reasonable depends on the defect. Case law and published guidance broadly treat:
Emergency repairs (no heat or hot water in winter, no water, flooding, unsafe electrics) as requiring action within 24 hours.
Urgent repairs (leaking pipes, partial heating failure, broken external doors) as requiring action within 3–7 days.
Routine repairs (failing window, dripping tap, loose banister) as requiring action within 28 days.
These are reference points, not statutory figures. A court will assess "reasonable time" against the severity of the defect, the condition of the property, the landlord's practical constraints, and the impact on the tenant.
The landlord's obligation is to carry out the repair within a reasonable time of the tenant giving notice - the clock does not start on the defect, it starts on the report.
— Derived from O'Brien v Robinson [1973] and subsequent cases
What tenants can do when Section 11 is breached
Report the defect in writing. Verbal reports still count legally, but a written report is what you can prove.
Give the landlord a reasonable chance to arrange access and carry out the work.
If the landlord misses a reasonable window, escalate - to the letting agent if there is one, then the landlord directly, then, where it applies, your local authority's environmental health or housing team.
Consider a "retaliatory eviction" protection (Deregulation Act 2015) if you are worried about being served notice for reporting. This applies to assured shorthold tenancies in England.
For persistent breaches, the county court can order specific performance (forcing the repair) and award damages for the period the defect went unrepaired.
How Section 11 interacts with newer legislation
Section 11 is not the only repair duty a landlord owes. It operates alongside the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), and - for social landlords and soon for private ones - Awaab's Law. These frameworks overlap rather than conflict. A damp and mould issue, for example, may be a breach of Section 11 and a fitness-for-habitation issue and a regulated Awaab's Law response.
The bottom line
Section 11 is short, but it is the backbone of every UK rental repair conversation. Landlords who maintain a property's structure, exterior, and core installations within reasonable timescales rarely have to worry about it. Tenants who report defects clearly and keep a proper record rarely struggle to rely on it. The disputes almost always come from breakdowns in one of those two disciplines.
Defectly was built for precisely that discipline: one record per defect, photo-evidenced, timestamped, and accessible to both tenant and landlord. If a Section 11 question ever has to be resolved later, the record is already in the format any housing officer, ombudsman, or court will expect.
