Legal and statutory rights

Regulatory Standards

• Governance and Financial Viability – ensuring that social housing landlords are well run and financially stable.
• Rent – ensuring that social housing landlords set tenants’ rent in accordance with government approved limits.
• Value for Money – ensuring that social housing landlords are achieving good value for the rent and service charges that residents pay them and for the money that they receive from government.
• Safety and Quality – ensuring that homes are safe, that the quality of homes is maintained and that effective repairs services are provided to residents;
• Transparency, Influence and Accountability – ensuring that residents are treated with fairness and respect, that landlords provide information about resident rights and service delivery, that they address complaints effectively and ensure fair outcomes for residents in a way that reflects their diverse needs;
• Neighbourhood and Community – ensuring that communal areas are safe, that landlords co-operate with local partners to promote residents’ wellbeing and tackle domestic abuse and that action is taken to prevent and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate crimes;
• Tenancy – ensuring that properties are allocated and exchanged fairly, that landlords offer residents the most appropriate form of tenancy and that they work with residents to support them in maintaining their tenancy and offer them appropriate advice when their tenancy ends.

Corporate law

Social housing landlords have a range of corporate legal responsibilities which include compliance with:

• their governing documents – rules, articles and statutes
• the Data Protection Act and General Data Protection Regulations 2018 – further information is available from the Information Commissioners Office
• the Equalities Act 2010 – further information is available at Equality Act 2010
• the Human Rights 1998 – further information is available from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission at The Human Rights Act
• requirements to undertake Right to Rent checks