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What is Emergency remedial action?
Last verified 31 October 2026
Emergency remedial action is action a local housing authority can take itself under section 40 of the Housing Act 2004 to remove an imminent risk of serious harm from a category 1 hazard on residential premises.
Why it matters to landlords
The council must be satisfied that the hazard involves an imminent risk of serious harm to occupiers of those or other premises, and that no management order is in force. It may then take the remedial action it considers immediately necessary, and it can exercise its right of entry at any time, applying for a warrant if it cannot get in without one.
Before entering, the council must serve notice on every known occupier, and fixing the notice to a conspicuous part of the premises counts as service. Within seven days of starting the work, it must serve a further notice, with copies, on the people it would otherwise have had to serve an improvement notice on. The section does not itself set out how to challenge the action, so read the later notice and take advice. The practical lesson is that serious gas, electrical or structural problems cannot wait for a tenant complaint to reach the council.
Example
A neighbour reports that the chimney stack on Paul's let house in Stockport is leaning over the pavement. The council decides it is an imminent risk of serious harm, serves notice on the occupiers, and has the stack made safe the same day. Paul then receives the follow-up notice within seven days.