Inspection plan
Our plan for undertaking landlord inspections.
Applies to England
This applies from 1 April 2024
We are publishing this inspection plan under section 201A of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (the Act). The plan, as detailed below, includes a description of which landlords (by this we mean registered providers of social housing) are subject to regular inspections which we refer to as programmed inspections, and how often we carry out these inspections. The plan also sets out when we carry out inspections which are not programmed.
We carry out these inspections under sections 201-203A of the Act. They can be carried out by an inspector who is a person authorised in writing by us. An inspector may be a member of our staff or a person external to the regulator.
We write to landlords and make it clear that we are starting an inspection. In most cases we give notice in advance and share the proposed dates for the start and completion of the inspection. For programmed inspections we usually give the landlord six weeks’ notice. We also share a scope with the landlord in advance which gives further indication of the inspection starting.
This plan covers the period from 1 April 2024 onwards. We will keep it under review and revise or replace it when appropriate. We have set out transitional arrangements covering the period before 1 April 2024.
Landlords subject to programmed inspections
We carry out programmed inspections of large landlords. They are either local authority landlords or private registered providers. We have set out details about what a programmed inspection involves.
Many private registered providers operate within a group structure. For groups that own 1,000 or more social homes, where the parent is a registered provider, inspections will take place at the group parent level.
By social homes we mean social housing as defined in sections 68 to 77 of the Act. Social housing includes
- low-cost rental accommodation, such as social rent and affordable rent homes
- low-cost home ownership accommodation, such as shared ownership homes
These are also defined in the Act.
We use the information that landlords submit in their annual Statistical Data Return (SDR)/Local Authority Data Return (LADR) to work out how many social homes a landlord owns. For regulatory purposes, the number of social homes that a landlord owns is the total of its social units and/or bed spaces where these are held either freehold or on a lease of any duration.
Frequency of inspections
For large landlords, we aim to carry out a programmed inspection at least every four years.
In line with our risk-based approach, the frequency with which we carry out a programmed inspection is generally linked to our assessment of risk. By risk we mean the risk to the provider delivering the outcomes of our standards.
We consider wide ranging factors when assessing risk. For example, we may consider some landlords present higher risk due to their size and/or the complexity of the activities they carry out. For some we might consider they are higher risk because of the level of financial risk they have. We may also look at regulatory information such as the tenant satisfaction measures, other regulatory returns and/ or our work to help us identify potential risks.
As a result of our assessment of risk, for some landlords we may aim to carry out programmed inspections more often than at least every 4 years, for example, every 2 or 3 years.
Inspections which are not programmed
We may also carry out inspections which are not programmed from time to time. These may be carried out for both small and large landlords. We normally do this if both of the following apply:
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We become aware of an issue or potential issue that we assess to be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards
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We consider an inspection to be an appropriate way to investigate. This may be for example that we consider an inspection may better enable us to get an in-depth view or to investigate urgently. It may also be because we consider an inspector’s powers may be of particular use in the circumstances.
Where we assess an issue or a potential issue to be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards, we may also decide to engage with the landlord in other ways, such as through our responsive engagement with landlords.
We may decide that some inspections have a narrow scope, for example where we want to focus on a particular issue. However, it is possible that we will make a narrowly scoped inspection broader if our initial inspection work raises wider concerns. Inspections which take place outside of the programme may be in situations of significant urgency and so they may take place at short notice. A summary of the findings of individual inspections are published in our regulatory judgements.