A council that has been at the forefront of campaigns for private landlords to improve housing quality, has itself been found to have 24% of its social homes classed as ‘non-decent’.
As unveiled from a Freedom of Information Request from a solicitors firm to Manchester City Council, almost one in four council homes in Manchester have failed to meet the government’s minimum housing standards at some point in the last five years.
The request revealed that 2,968 properties have been classified as non-decent between 2020 and early 2025. This means they did not meet the legal requirements under the Decent Homes Standard, covering issues such as repair condition, safety, thermal comfort, and basic amenities.
The council manages approximately 12,400 social housing properties, placing the five-year failure rate at nearly 24% of all homes. In total, 3,068 individual housing element failures were recorded over the same period, as some homes experienced more than one issue.
A spokesperson for Graham Coffey & Co Solicitors says: “This is no longer about isolated cases – it’s a pattern affecting thousands of households. When nearly a quarter of all council homes fall short of minimum standards, it raises serious questions about the condition and resilience of the city’s housing stock.
“These are the people who did the right thing – applied for housing, followed the rules, paid their rent – and they’re living in substandard homes. Too many of them are being left in limbo while their homes deteriorate around them.”
The company goes on to says that although Manchester City Council has not recorded formal complaints about housing providers as entities during this period, housing condition failures have been tracked consistently through tenancy management and repair records. These figures reflect direct reports from tenants to housing providers, and the resulting logged failures form the basis of the council’s non-decent housing data.
The government last week gave details of what it considers to be an appropriate Decent Homes Standard for the private rental sector, closely mirroring proposals for the social rental sector where such a standard has existed for many years.
The government is consulting on the new standard which will be introduced in principle as part of the Renters Rights Bill, when that becomes law in the autumn. However, agents and landlords are not being expected to ensure properties meet the new standards until well into the future – in the cases of some measures, not until 2037.
The government’s proposals – out to consultation until mid-September – are based on five principles:
- Homes must be free from Category 1 hazards
- Be in a reasonable state of repair – with clear parameters laid out as to what this means
- Have reasonably modern facilities
- Meet new ‘thermal comfort requirements’ related to minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES)
- Be free of any damp or mould.
The suggested implementation date for the new Decent Homes Standard is either 2035 or 2037, with the long lead-in time giving the sector time to get to grips with new minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) set to be introduced to all tenancies – in both the private and social sectors – by 2030.
New enforcement powers for councils, which include the increased penalty amounts of up to £40,000 for non-compliance with enforcement action would be introduced ahead of the Decent Homes Standard, although no set timeframe is suggested.
