1. Who is the Regulator of Social Housing?

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) oversees all registered providers of social housing in England — including councils, housing associations, ALMOs, and co-ops.

The Regulator’s role is to:

• Set standards for how landlords must manage homes, services, finances, governance and involvement.
• Monitor and inspect landlords.
• Intervene where landlords are failing.
• Ensure the whole social housing sector is well-run and focused on safe, high-quality homes.

The Regulator works alongside — but is different from — the Housing Ombudsman, who deals with individual complaints.

2. What the Regulator covers (the Standards)

The regulator sets two types of Standards:

Consumer Standards

These relate to the services that tenants receive:

Safety & Quality Standard

Your landlord must:

• Keep your home safe and free from hazards (including fire risks, dangerous electrics, damp and mould).
• Complete repairs on time, with urgent issues dealt with quickly.
• Carry out regular safety checks – gas, electrics, fire safety and checks for damp and mould.
• Maintain communal areas so they are clean, safe and in good working order.
• Deliver good-quality services (cleaning, grounds maintenance, lighting, etc.).
• Communicate clearly about repairs, inspections and any disruption.
• Act fast on any health and safety risks you report.

Transparency, Influence & Accountability Standard

Your landlord must:

• Be open and transparent, giving you clear, accessible information about how they run services and make decisions.
• Listen to residents’ views and show how your feedback has influenced plans, policies and services.
• Give residents real opportunities to get involved, from consultations to formal participation and scrutiny activities.
• Report honestly on performance, including complaints, repairs, safety and satisfaction.
• Take responsibility when things go wrong, offering clear explanations and putting things right.
• Make it easy to raise concerns, ensuring complaints are handled fairly and within set timescales.

Neighbourhood & Community Standard

Your landlord must:

• Keep your neighbourhood clean and safe, including communal areas, estates and shared outdoor spaces.
• Respond effectively to anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse, acting promptly, taking reports seriously, and working with specialist agencies where needed.
• Support resident safety and wellbeing, including measures to prevent harm and protect vulnerable residents.
• Work with local partners (council, police, support services) to tackle issues that affect the neighbourhood.
• Help strengthen community life, supporting activities that build connection and a positive living environment.

Tenancy Standard

Your landlord must:

• Let homes fairly and transparently, using clear criteria and giving residents the information they need before signing a tenancy.
• Provide the right type of tenancy, explaining your rights, responsibilities and how your rent is set.
• Ensure tenancies are well-managed, including accurate records, clear communication and proper handling of changes (succession, assignment, joint tenancies, etc.).
• Support residents to sustain their tenancy, offering help if you’re struggling with rent, benefits, or other issues that might put your home at risk.
• Give proper notice and follow the law if they need to end a tenancy, ensuring actions are fair, proportionate and clearly explained.
• Be transparent about rent and service charges, including how they’re set, reviewed and communicated.

Economic Standards

These standards cover how your landlord is run behind the scenes and how it manages its money. They include the Governance & Financial Viability Standard, the Value for Money Standard, and the Rent Standard.

Together, they require landlords to:

• Have strong governance and clear decision-making.
• Manage finances responsibly so they remain stable in the long term.
• Plan and budget for repairs, safety works and major improvements.
• Use their resources efficiently and demonstrate value for money.
• Set rents in line with national rules and explain rent changes clearly.

Residents don’t deal with these standards every day, but they matter. When they aren’t met, it often shows up in slower repairs, fewer improvements, poor communication or reduced investment in homes and communities.

3. How the Regulator works (how they regulate)

A. Public ratings

The Regulator now publicly rates landlords on:

• Consumer Standards (C1–C4) – how well the landlord delivers safe, good-quality services for residents.
• Governance (G1–G4) – how well the organisation is run.
• Financial Viability (V1–V4) – how financially healthy and stable it is.

These ratings show how safe, reliable and well-run your landlord is. C1/G1/V1 is the highest rating; C4/G4/V4 means serious failure.

B. Monitoring and data

The Regulator continually collects and reviews information from landlords, including:

• Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)
• Safety and building compliance data
• Repairs, lettings and complaints performance
• Financial and governance information

This helps the Regulator spot risks early.

C. Inspections

Large landlords (1,000+ homes) now receive proactive inspections at least every 4 years. Smaller landlords can also be inspected if risks are identified. Inspections assess whether the landlord is meeting the consumer standards.

D. Regulatory judgements and notices

If a landlord is failing or at risk of failing, the Regulator can:

• Issue regulatory judgements (including C, G and V ratings)
• Require improvement plans
• Issue enforcement notices
• Restrict certain activities
• Appoint new managers
• Deregister a provider
• In extreme situations, step in and take control

E. Co-regulation

Every landlord’s board or councillors carry the primary responsibility for meeting the standards. The Regulator steps in only when they don’t, or when residents’ safety or services are at risk.

4. What the Regulator will — and won’t — do

What they will do:

• Act if a landlord is systemically failing standards
• Investigate serious, widespread or organisational problems
• Review evidence submitted by tenants or groups
• Inspect and enforce where needed
• Hold landlords accountable for governance, financial viability and consumer standards

What they won’t do:

• They do not handle individual complaints — that’s the Housing Ombudsman.
• They won’t fix a repair, chase a contractor, or intervene in a single tenancy dispute
• They won’t act on issues you haven’t raised with your landlord first
• They won’t provide immediate remedies — their role is regulatory, not casework

Think of it this way:

Ombudsman = your individual issue

Regulator = your landlord’s overall performance

5. When – and how – tenants can make a referral

When to consider referring your landlord to the Regulator

You can contact the Regulator if you believe your landlord is failing one of its standards in a serious, repeated or widespread way. This can include failures in the consumer standards and, in more serious cases, the economic standards. Examples include:

• Ongoing building safety failures
• Long-term or ignored disrepair affecting many homes
• Lack of transparency or misleading information
• No meaningful tenant involvement or influence
• Service charge mismanagement
• Neglect of estates or communal areas
• Systemic problems with lettings or transfers
• Widespread tenancy management failures
• Serious concerns about governance or financial stability that put services or homes at risk

How to make a referral

• Collect evidence – dates, photos, emails, letters, examples from residents, or statements from tenant groups.
• Raise it with your landlord first through the complaints process.
• Raise it collectively if you can (Residents Association, tenant group, co-op committee, scrutiny panel).
• If the issue is organisational, widespread or serious, you can then make a referral to the Regulator through its website or by email.

When making a referral, explain the following points to them

• Which standard you believe is being breached
• Why the issue is serious
• How many people or buildings are affected
• What the landlord has (or hasn’t) done to fix it

You do not need legal language — clear, factual examples are enough.

What the Regulator will do with your referral

When you make a referral, the Regulator will:

• Review the information you provide and decide whether it relates to a failure of the standards.
• Look at wider evidence it already receives, including TSMs, safety data, inspection findings and patterns in complaints.
• Assess whether the issue appears serious, repeated or widespread enough to investigate further.
• Contact your landlord if more information is needed or if there are signs of non-compliance.
• Take regulatory action if it finds a breach or risk of breach — including requiring improvement plans, issuing notices, publishing ratings or using enforcement powers.

What the Regulator will not do

• It will not resolve individual repairs, complaints or tenancy issues — these are for your landlord and the Housing Ombudsman.
• It will not provide detailed updates to individual residents on enforcement activity, though some actions (like regulatory judgements) are published publicly.
• The Regulator’s role is to make sure the landlord as an organisation meets the standards and manages risks properly.

6. When to contact the Housing Ombudsman instead

If the issue affects you personally, rather than the organisation, the Housing Ombudsman is usually the correct route. The Ombudsman looks at individual cases where the landlord has delayed, failed to follow its own policies, communicated poorly, not treated a resident fairly or failed to resolve a complaint.

You should go to the Ombudsman after completing your landlord’s complaints process, or if the landlord has taken an unreasonably long time to provide a final response. The Ombudsman focuses on whether you have been treated fairly in your case; the Regulator focuses on whether the landlord is meeting its standards across all homes and services.

Where to get more information

Watch: New standards for social housing – Four Million Homes webinar 

Watch: Regulator of Social Housing YouTube channel

Short, plain-English videos explaining inspections, consumer standards, TSMs and how regulation works.

The standards your landlord needs to meet

Regulatory Standards (full list)

The complete set of consumer and economic standards that all social landlords must meet.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)

Shows the national measures landlords must report on, including repairs, safety, engagement and satisfaction.

Regulatory judgements and notices

See published C (consumer), G (governance) and V (financial viability) ratings for landlords, plus enforcement notices.

Housing Ombudsman Service

Information about your rights, landlord responsibilities, case studies and complaints guidance.

Make a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman

Step-by-step guidance on how to take an individual complaint forward after your landlord’s process is complete.

Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code

Shows what a compliant complaints process should look like — useful for checking whether your landlord is following the rules.