The toilet has not flushed properly for a week. The kitchen sink drains slowly, then not at all, and now there is a smell coming up from the plughole that you cannot get rid of. You have reported it and been told someone will come. Meanwhile you are washing up in the bath.
Plumbing and drainage that belong to the building are your landlord's responsibility, and a home with no working toilet or no running water is not something you have to put up with. This guide covers what your landlord must keep working, when a blockage is your job, and a council route that can force the repair and make your landlord cover your costs.
Is a blocked drain the landlord's responsibility or the tenant's?
It depends on what caused the blockage. Under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, your landlord must keep the drains, the external pipes and the waste pipes in repair, and must keep the basins, sinks, baths and toilets and their plumbing in proper working order. A drain that backs up because it is collapsed, cracked, badly laid or full of tree roots is a fault in the system, and that is your landlord's to fix.
A blockage you caused is different. Wet wipes, cooking fat, nappies or anything else that should not go down there is on you to clear, under your basic duty to use the home in a sensible way.
Your landlord must fix
- Drains, soil pipes, gutters and external pipes
- The cold and hot water supply and the pipework behind your walls
- Toilets, sinks, basins and baths, and keeping them in working order
- A blockage caused by a fault in the system, like a collapsed drain
Usually down to you
- A blockage you caused with wipes, fat or foreign objects
- Clearing a simple, one-off blockage in your own sink
- Your own appliances, like a dishwasher you installed
- Reporting a problem promptly and giving access to fix it
A useful test: if a blockage keeps coming back even when you are using the toilet and sinks normally, that points to a fault in the pipework, which is your landlord's job. Ask for a drainage survey. A camera down the drain often settles who is responsible.
Is no running water or a broken toilet an emergency repair?
Yes. A complete loss of water, a toilet that cannot be used at all in a one-bathroom home, or raw sewage backing up into the property are all emergencies. The reasonable time to fix them is measured in hours, not weeks.
These problems also score highly as health hazards, which means your council can treat them as serious and act fast. For social housing, landlords already have to make an emergency hazard safe within 24 hours, and a court looking at a private case will have that kind of timescale in mind.
If you have lost water entirely, check whether it is a problem with the mains before blaming your landlord. Your water company can tell you, and many will drop off emergency bottled water. If the fault is in the property's own pipes, it is your landlord's to fix urgently.
How to report a blocked drain to the council as a statutory nuisance
This is the route many renters never hear about, and for drains and sewage it is the strong one.
A home left in a state that is harmful to health, or a serious nuisance like a foul sewage smell, can be a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. That opens two doors. First, your council's environmental health team can serve your landlord with an abatement notice, a legal order to sort it out, and ignoring that notice is a criminal offence. Where the problem is a structural drainage fault, the notice goes to the landlord as the owner.
Second, and this is the part that surprises people, you can take your landlord to the magistrates' court yourself. You give them at least 21 days' written warning, then ask the court to act. If the nuisance is proven, the court can order the work done, fine your landlord, and order them to pay your reasonable costs. That second route matters most when the council is slow, or when your landlord is the council itself.
Can I claim compensation for broken plumbing or drains?
If your landlord left a problem they were responsible for, you can claim for it. Compensation is usually worked out as a share of your rent for the time the problem lasted. A single slow-draining sink sits at the low end, around 10 to 20 percent. Only one usable toilet out of action, no hot water, or persistent foul drainage pushes it higher, and a home with no water at all or sewage flooding in can reach most of the rent.
On top of that you can claim the extra costs the problem forced on you. Trips to the launderette, eating out because the kitchen was unusable, bottled water, and any belongings ruined by sewage. Keep the receipts. The figures are broken down in how much you can claim for disrepair.
What to do if your landlord ignores a plumbing problem
Report it in writing and keep a copy, since the repair clock starts when your landlord knows. Note what is wrong, how it is affecting you, and the date. Take dated photos and video, especially of any standing water, sewage or persistent damp, and keep a short diary.
If nothing changes, bring in your council's environmental health team, who can inspect for free, and consider the statutory nuisance route above. The full step-by-step is in how to handle a disrepair case, and the council process is in how to report a landlord to the council. Do not withhold rent to force the issue, as it can leave you in arrears and weaken your position.
If your landlord has left you with broken plumbing or a drain they will not fix, Remedy can tell you where you stand and draft the formal letter, or the statutory nuisance warning, that gets it taken seriously. Start with a free assessment at remedylegal.ai.
