Many of London’s homes are in poor condition. This poor housing affects the occupants, the NHS and society more broadly. This Housing Research Note estimates the annual cost to the NHS of homes in poor condition in London. It also estimates the cost of repairing all the homes in London that are in poor condition, calculating how long it would take the savings to pay off the repair costs. The analysis is broken down by tenure and compared with the same figures for the rest of England.

This research applies a methodology developed by BRE to London’s housing. Data on the condition of London’s housing stock comes from the English Housing Survey. The tenure breakdown of this research helps illuminate disparity of housing quality across tenures in London at a time when the Decent Homes Standard is under review and due to be applied to the Private Rented Sector for the first time.