How Much Compensation for Housing Disrepair? A Guide for Council and Housing Association Tenants

In short

Housing disrepair compensation is usually worked out as a share of the rent you paid while the problem went unfixed. In cases of this kind the courts have often landed somewhere between 25% and 50% of the rent for moderate disrepair, and higher again where a home was barely liveable. On top of that you may be able to claim back the cost of damaged belongings, higher energy bills and any effect on your health. Many claims settle somewhere between £1,000 and £10,000, although every case turns on its own facts and none of these figures is a promise of what you would receive.

How housing disrepair compensation is worked out

If your council or housing association has left a problem unrepaired, any compensation is made up of three separate parts. They are assessed in different ways and they add together.

1. General damages, the discomfort and inconvenience

This is the main part of most awards. It compensates you for what it was actually like to live there: the cold, the smell, the rooms you could not use, the worry and the disruption.

The courts have generally approached this as a proportion of the rent paid for the period the disrepair lasted. The worse the problem, and the more of the home it affected, the higher that proportion tends to be.

Severity	Share of rent seen in similar cases	What that usually looks like
Minor	Around 10% to 25%	One room affected, the home still usable. A persistent drip, a damp patch, a broken extractor fan.
Moderate	Around 25% to 50%	Two or more rooms affected, daily life disrupted. Mould in a bedroom, no hot water, a leaking roof.
Serious	Around 50% to 75%	Most of the home affected, rooms out of use. Widespread mould, no heating through a winter, repeated flooding.
Severe	Around 75% to 100%	The home is barely liveable. Structural danger, rooms nobody can sleep in, vulnerable people at home.

These are broad ranges drawn from how the courts have approached cases of a similar kind. They are not a scale of entitlement and not a valuation of your claim.

A worked example

The arithmetic is easier to follow with a made up example. It illustrates the method only.

A tenant pays £700 a month. Damp and mould spread through the bedroom and living room and went unrepaired for 18 months. On those facts a claim might be assessed at around 40% of the rent.

£700 a month, at 40%, across 18 months, comes to £5,040 in general damages.

Add £900 for a ruined sofa, mattress and curtains, and £350 in extra heating costs, and that example reaches £6,290. Change the rent, the severity or the length of time and the figure moves with it.

2. Special damages, what the disrepair cost you

Anything you can put a receipt or a sensible replacement value against:

Furniture, mattresses, carpets, curtains and bedding destroyed by damp or water
Clothing, shoes and soft furnishings ruined by mould
Televisions, laptops and appliances damaged by leaks or electrical faults
Higher gas and electricity bills caused by broken heating, draughts or damp
Dehumidifiers, portable heaters, mould treatments and cleaning products
Extra laundry costs
Alternative accommodation, if you had to move out while works were done
Redecoration once the repairs are finished

Keep receipts wherever you can. Where you no longer have them, dated photographs and a reasonable replacement value are usually accepted.

Rough figures only. This is not a valuation of your claim.

No tool can tell you what your claim is worth. Every case is decided on its own facts and some claims do not succeed. What a claim is actually worth depends on the evidence you have, when you reported it and how your landlord responded, how much of your home was affected and for how long, the effect on your health, and any rent arrears, which can be set off against an award.

Your rent

How long it has gone unfixed

14months

1 month5 years

How bad is it

Did you tell your landlord

Where the percentages come from

10% to 20%One room affected

20% to 40%Several rooms affected

40% to 60%Most of the home

60% to 100%Not fit to live in

These are shares of the rent paid over the affected period, not fixed sums or fixed court tariffs. The calculator uses illustrative percentage ranges to show how compensation may vary depending on the extent of the disrepair. Every claim is assessed on its own facts. This calculator caps its illustration at 100% of the rent for the affected period; this is not a legal maximum.

The full method, and what is not included

How damages are assessed. Where a tenant stays in the property, the loss is loss of comfort and convenience. It can be assessed as a notional reduction in rent, or as a global award cross checked against the rent for the period. A further 10% is added to general damages under Simmons v Castle, and this tool applies it.

Courts vary the percentage over time. In practice a judge often applies different percentages to different periods as a problem gets worse or is partly fixed. This tool applies one band across the whole period, so it is a simplification.

Ruined belongings and extra costs are special damages. They are claimed separately, itemised, and should be supported with receipts, photographs or other evidence where available.

Not included: any personal injury, such as a breathing condition caused or made worse by damp, which is valued separately and has a shorter three year time limit; any rent arrears, which can be set off against an award; and the cost of the repairs themselves, which a court can also order your landlord to carry out.

The Housing Ombudsman is a different route. It can consider complaints about social landlords and may order compensation or other remedies. Whether it can consider a complaint can depend on whether the same issues are, or have been, part of legal proceedings. We can explain which route may be available to you.

This is general information about how the courts approach these claims. It is not legal advice, it is not a valuation, and using this tool does not make us your solicitors.

Open the full calculator on its own page

3. Personal injury, if your health suffered

If mould triggered or worsened asthma, caused a chest infection, or a defect in the property caused an accident, that is a separate head of claim. It is not worked out from your rent at all.

Injury is assessed separately, on the medical evidence: your GP and hospital records and, in larger cases, a report from an independent medical expert. Because the figure depends entirely on that evidence, we do not publish injury brackets. Your solicitor can tell you what your own evidence supports once it has been obtained.

Who we can help. We act for council and housing association tenants in England and Wales. We are not able to take claims from private tenants, or from tenants in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Broad ranges seen in comparable cases

The table below gives a rough sense of where claims of different kinds have landed. It is a guide to scale, not a price list.

The situation	Range seen in similar cases
Minor damp in one room, under 12 months	£500 to £1,500
Mould in a bedroom, 12 to 24 months	£1,500 to £4,000
No heating or hot water through a winter	£1,000 to £3,000
Widespread damp and mould over two years or more	£4,000 to £10,000
Severe disrepair over three years or more, with a health impact	£10,000 to £25,000, sometimes more
A home that is not fit to live in and needs the household rehoused	Assessed individually, often substantial

Every one of these is indicative. What a claim is actually worth depends on the rent, the severity, the duration and the quality of the evidence behind it.

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What tends to increase an award

How long it lasted. Duration is the single biggest multiplier. The same problem over three years is worth far more than over three months.
How much of the home was affected. A problem running through the whole property counts for a great deal more than one wall.
Vulnerable people in the household. Babies and young children, older residents, and anyone with a respiratory or mobility condition.
Missed appointments and broken promises. Every visit your landlord failed to turn up for strengthens the picture.
Written evidence. Emails beat phone calls. Dated photographs beat descriptions.
A health impact recorded by your GP. An illness nobody wrote down at the time is very hard to claim for.
A breach of the Awaab's Law deadlines. Social landlords now work to fixed legal timescales for damp, mould and emergencies. See our guide to Awaab's Law.

What tends to reduce it

Reporting the problem late, or only ever by telephone
Refusing your landlord access to inspect the property or to carry out the works
Damage caused by you, your household or your visitors
Condensation you could reasonably have managed by ventilating, where the building itself is sound
Gaps in the timeline, where a problem was fixed and then came back later

None of these necessarily ends a claim. They affect how much of the period counts and how responsibility is divided.

Working out a rough figure for yourself

To get a sense of the scale you need four things:

Your monthly rent.
What is wrong, and which rooms it affects.
Roughly how many months it has gone unrepaired.
Whether anyone in the home has been unwell because of it.

Take your monthly rent, apply a percentage from the severity table above, multiply by the number of months, then add what the problem has cost you in ruined belongings and higher bills. The result is a ballpark and nothing more. A solicitor may well put it higher or lower once they have seen the evidence.

Do you pay tax on housing disrepair compensation?

No. Compensation for inconvenience, distress, damaged belongings and personal injury is not normally treated as taxable income, so it does not need to go on a tax return.

Will compensation affect your benefits?

It can. A lump sum counts towards the capital limits for means tested benefits such as Universal Credit if it pushes your savings above the threshold. Personal injury awards can often be placed in a trust so that entitlement is protected. If that is likely to affect you, raise it with your solicitor before the money lands.

What you pay to make a claim

We work on a no win no fee basis. There is nothing to pay upfront and no fee to pay if the claim does not succeed. If it does succeed, our success fee is capped at 25% of the compensation, and an After the Event insurance premium is normally deducted as well. Every deduction is set out in writing before you sign anything. Our no win no fee guide sets out how that works, and how long a housing disrepair claim takes covers the timescales. For the background, see our guide to housing disrepair claims and damp and mould compensation.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average payout for housing disrepair?

There is no reliable published average. Many claims settle somewhere between £1,000 and £10,000, but the figure turns on your rent, how bad the problem was, how long it went unrepaired and the evidence you can produce.

How is housing disrepair compensation calculated?

General damages are worked out as a share of the rent you paid during the disrepair, often in the region of 25% to 50% for moderate cases. Special damages and any personal injury element are added on top.

Can I claim for damaged furniture and belongings?

Yes. Furniture, carpets, clothing, bedding and electrical items damaged by damp, mould or leaks are claimed as special damages. Keep receipts where you can.

How much compensation for mould in a rented home?

Mould claims have commonly settled somewhere between £1,500 and £6,000, depending on how many rooms were affected, how long it lasted and whether anyone in the home became unwell. That is a broad range, not a valuation of your claim.

Do I pay anything to claim?

Under a no win no fee agreement there is nothing to pay upfront and no fee to pay if you lose. If you win, our success fee is capped at 25% of your compensation, and an After the Event insurance premium is normally deducted as well. Every deduction is set out in writing before you sign anything.