726,000 PRS homes may fail the Decent Homes Standard 2035 deadline

Around 726,000 privately rented homes in England could fail the Decent Homes Standard (DHS) by 2035, research reveals.

Inventory Base says that another 87,000 homes in the social sector could fail too.

Publication of the new Decent Homes Standard last month followed a lengthy consultation, and landlords have up to 10 years to comply.

The firm has reviewed the English Housing Survey (EHS) to measure the scale of the task facing landlords.

It is now warning that the homes would also fail the current decency standard.

2035 deadline helps

Sián Hemming-Metcalfe, the operations director at Inventory Base, said: “Nine years is a long time to tell tenants to wait for homes to become properly fit for habitation.

“A fixed 2035 deadline is at least a step forward, if only because it replaces vague ambition with something more concrete.

“But the uncomfortable truth is that we are not moving fast enough.”

She added: “Hundreds of thousands of homes already fail today’s Decent Homes Standard.

“By 2035, the risk is not that we fall short of the new benchmark, it’s that we still haven’t met the old one.”

Non-decent home numbers

The analysis of the EHS shows that private rented non-decent numbers have fallen from 1.45 million homes in 2008 to 1.09 million in 2024.

The average annual reduction over the last decade sits at -1.6%, with a 6.1% uptick recorded in 2024.

Social housing’ non-decent homes fell from 1.07 million in 2008 to 428,000 in 2024, averaging -2.7% annually.