Repairs and disrepair — Yorkshire Housing

Before thinking about any legal claim, report the problem to Yorkshire Housing and, if it is not fixed, complain. It is free, you do not need anyone to do it for you, and it is often the fastest way to get repairs moving. It also creates a written record of what you reported and when.

How to report a repair. Report a repair through Yorkshire Housing's customer portal (opens in new tab) or by phone on 0345 366 4404, which takes emergency repairs at any time of day or night. Yorkshire Housing asks you to report damp and mould by phone.^[13]

How Yorkshire Housing's complaints process works. Complain through the customer portal (opens in new tab), by email to YHComplaints@yorkshirehousing.co.uk, or by phone on 0345 366 4404.^[9] Yorkshire Housing sets out the steps on its How complaints work (opens in new tab) page:

• Acknowledgement — within 5 working days of your complaint.
• Stage 1 — investigation — it aims to resolve the complaint within 10 working days.
• Stage 2 — review — if you are unhappy with the outcome, ask for a review by someone else. Yorkshire Housing says it will give a final response within 20 working days of acknowledging it.^[9]

Leeds City Council homes. If you live in a Leeds City Council home where Yorkshire Housing provides the service, complain to Leeds City Council instead — Yorkshire Housing says the council is responsible there.^[10]

If the complaint doesn't fix it: the Housing Ombudsman. If you have been through Yorkshire Housing's two stages and are still unhappy, you can take your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.^[9] The service is free and independent, and you can contact it for advice at any point. It can order your landlord to carry out repairs, apologise, and pay you compensation, and you do not need a claims company or a solicitor to use it.

Your local council. Yorkshire Housing is not a council, but the council where you live can still send its environmental health team to inspect a home with a serious hazard.

Free advice. Shelter and Citizens Advice both give free, independent housing advice, and a local law centre can tell you whether you qualify for legal aid. For disrepair, legal aid can be available to make a landlord deal with a serious risk to health or safety, but not normally for a compensation-only claim.

"Disrepair" means problems with your home that your landlord is legally responsible for fixing but hasn't. Common examples include:

• damp and mould
• leaks — from the roof, pipes, or a flat above
• broken heating or no hot water
• rotten or draughty windows and doors
• cracked walls, unsafe ceilings or other structural problems
• faulty electrics.

You may have a claim against Yorkshire Housing if all of these apply:

1. Yorkshire Housing is your landlord. Check your tenancy agreement — the landlord named on it is what counts. If you live in a Leeds City Council home, see the council question in the FAQs.
2. Yorkshire Housing knew about the problem. Usually that means you reported it. A repair logged on the portal or by phone leaves a reference number, so keep it with your photos, emails and letters.
3. It failed to fix the problem in a reasonable time. What is "reasonable" depends on the problem; Yorkshire Housing's own repair targets, in the FAQs below, are a useful guide.
4. You were affected — for example, your health suffered, your belongings were damaged, or part of your home became unusable.

If you are a shared owner or a leaseholder in a Yorkshire Housing building, you have rights too, though your repair rights depend on your lease — see the shared-owner question in the FAQs below.

A housing disrepair claim can deal with two things: getting the repairs done, and recognising what living with the problem has cost you. Depending on your situation, a claim may cover:

• the repairs themselves — a court can order Yorkshire Housing to carry out the work;
• inconvenience and distress — compensation may be sought for the disruption of living with the problem;
• effects on health — for example where damp and mould have made a breathing condition worse;
• damaged belongings — clothes, furniture, carpets or electronics ruined by damp, mould or leaks;
• loss of use of part of your home — such as a bedroom or bathroom you could not safely use.

The Ombudsman's decisions about Yorkshire Housing deal with the same kinds of loss. In the August 2025 roof case described in the FAQs, Yorkshire Housing had already paid for damaged belongings, and the Ombudsman ordered more for distress and inconvenience. It said effects on health were a matter for the courts.^[5] Those are Ombudsman remedies, not court awards.

What a claim is worth can only be assessed from the evidence — see the compensation question in the FAQs.

Step 1 — tell us what's happened. You answer some straightforward questions: what the problem is, when you reported it, what Yorkshire Housing did (or didn't do), and how it has affected your household. Photos, repair reference numbers and Yorkshire Housing's written responses to your complaint all help.

Step 2 — get your free report. We assess your answers against the legal tests on this page and give you a clear written view of whether you may have a claim and how strong it looks. Your first conversation with us is always free.

Step 3 — if your case is strong, we connect you with an independent, regulated law firm — and we will be upfront about that before you commit to anything. They take it from there: advising you, writing to Yorkshire Housing formally, and usually arranging an independent surveyor to inspect your home. Most disrepair cases settle without anyone going to court.

A note on time limits. A disrepair claim is normally treated as a contract claim, with a limitation period of six years from when the landlord should have fixed the problem.^[16] Where part of the claim is for an injury to health — damp-related breathing problems, for instance — that element usually carries a shorter, three-year limit instead.^[16] Even long-running problems can often still be claimed for, but it makes sense to check where you stand rather than assume. Disrepair claims usually take months rather than weeks to resolve, which is one more reason to keep asking for the repairs through Yorkshire Housing's complaints process while any claim runs.