As your landlord, Alliance Homes is required to ensure your home meets the Government’s Decent Homes Standard.   

For a home to be classed as 'decent' it must meet the following four criteria. 

A – It must meet the current statutory minimum standards for housing

Dwellings that fail are those containing one or more hazards assessed as serious (‘Category 1’) under HHSRS – Housing Health and Safety Rating System.

B – The home must be in a reasonable state of repair

Dwellings that fail are those where either: 

  • one or more of the key building components are old and, because of their condition need replacing or major repair or 

  • two or more of the other building components are old and because of their condition need replacing or major repair 

C – There should be reasonable modern facilities and services

Dwellings that fail are those lacking three or more of the following: 

  • a reasonably modern kitchen (20 years old or less) 

  • a kitchen with adequate space and layout 

  • a reasonably modern bathroom (30 years old or less) 

  • an appropriately located bathroom and WC 

  • adequate insulation against external noise (where there is an external noise problem) 

  • adequate size and layout of common areas for blocks of flats 

D – Provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort

This requires dwellings to have both effective insulation and efficient heating. 

Wherever possible it is our aim to provide customers with homes that exceed the Decent Homes Standard through proactive repairs and planned investment.  To help achieve this, we have an ongoing programme of Home Improvement Surveys to collect information on the age and condition of key components and identify any HHSRS (Housing Health and Safety Rating System) hazards in your home. We record this information in our asset management database to inform planned investment in our homes and any Category 1 hazards identified by Home Improvement Surveyors are escalated for immediate remediation. 

You don’t have to wait for us to contact you though – if you have any concerns about the condition of your home, please get in touch so that we can arrange a survey. Please email our Customer Services team at act@alliancehomes.org.uk  or call 03000 120 120.

Image of newly fitted kitchen

Home improvement survey

We survey every home, once every five years to see what could be improved.

View