Housing warrants of fitness should be made compulsory, according to an academic who developed the UK’s housing rating system.
Professor David Ormandy led the development of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System used in Britain for more than a decade, and adopted in the US.
Prof David Omandy Photo: Supplied
It inspired the University of Otago's rental warrant of fitness - recently introduced on a voluntary basis by Wellington City Council – which sets minimum health and safety standards for rental properties.
The UK system shifted the focus from the state of a building to the effect on the occupants’ health of substandard conditions, Ormandy says.
It sets minimum standards for 29 factors including dampness, mould growth and exposure to low or high temperatures.
It takes into account where in the house a problem occurs; mould growth or cold temperatures in a bedroom, where people spend some eight hours a day, will be more harmful than in a hallway, for example.
The scheme run by Wellington City Council resulted in just two houses given a warrant of fitness in the first six months.
Ormandy says such rating systems should be made a requirement and regulated. If not society pays the price through the health costs of people living in poor housing.
“To protect the taxpayer as well as the individual it would be better to reduce the number of hazardous dangerous dwellings.”
The change since the UK rating system was brought in has been “quite significant”, he says.
Measured by checking representative samples of housing stock, the main problems - cold housing, dampness and incidents of occupants falling - have fallen 10 percent over the decade
Local authority inspectors, trained in environmental health, carry out checks on housing.
“It doesn’t take that long to do,” Ormandy says. “It’s fairly straightforward.”
A complaint can trigger an inspection, or the council can instigate one itself.
The biggest problem is the possible risk to a tenant if they complain, because the most common tenancies in the UK are 12 months or less, with no right of renewal.
“So if the tenant complains, that tenant could be seen by the landlord to be a bit of a problem so they would not necessarily renew the tenancy.”
Ormandy, a professor at the University of Warwick's Medical School, is contributing to the early stages of the inquiry into the fire in London’s Grenfell Tower, advising lawyers for some residents and the fire service.
“The tenants were complaining, trying to say something was wrong. There should have been a proper inspection, applying something like the rating system, so you look at what potential hazards there are - fire safety is of them – and then you call in the expert.”
It is possible to have proper controls, he says.
He’s scathing about the self-certification system for building in the UK, in which the people who do the work certify they’ve satisfied building controls.
“That to me is ridiculous. There should be independent checks.
“If somebody comes up with a new idea of how to put houses up, that should be checked, not just ‘oh we’ll take your word for it’.
“We’ve got plenty of examples to show it doesn’t work.”
Ormandy has been visiting New Zealand as part of the University of Otago summer school.
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