ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the legislation available to help address health and safety issues in housing and the wider living environment. The Housing Act 2004 represented a major turning point in housing and introduced a range of new duties and powers. Key to this was the introduction of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), a completely new evidence based approach to assessing housing conditions and deciding on the most appropriate course of action to take. The HHSRS completely altered the way in which dwellings are assessed, providing a new, dynamic and evidence-based method. Hoarding is characterised by compulsive collection and inability to dispose of possessions to the extent that living space is compromised. Dealing with cases of hoarding has been an area of substantially evolving partnership work where more effective and evidence based interventions are developing, albeit erratically.
