Landlords are operating in an environment of legislation saturation and rising scrutiny. STAIRs (Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements) is often framed as a transparency or comms workload. That misses the point.

STAIRs is a readiness test, one that forces every landlord to enact the following three questions:

1. What will we publish proactively? (from 1 October 2026)
2. What can we answer quickly on request? (from 1 April 2027, with responses due within 30 calendar days)
3. What evidence can we defend if challenged?

The policy intent is clear: tenants should be able to access information about how their homes and services are managed. For many providers, the hard part won’t be writing new messages. It will be finding consistent, trusted information across assets, repairs, contractors, complaints, and risk, at speed.

The slightly uncomfortable truth

Most organisations don’t fail transparency because they’re unwilling. They fail because evidence retrieval is operationally expensive. When data is fragmented across systems, contractor inboxes, shared drives and spreadsheets, every request creates drag:

• Time spent chasing proof instead of reducing risk
• “RAG-status governance” that can’t be evidenced
• Re-keying and reconciling data with no audit trail
• Senior time burned in escalation loops because nobody trusts the underlying record

STAIRs doesn’t create that problem, it exposes it faster.

STAIRs won’t create new problems. It will reveal old ones faster.

Most housing teams already know where the issues lie:

• Stock condition data in one system, works history in another
• Contractor-held records that take weeks to retrieve
• Spreadsheet trackers that aren’t auditable
• “We think we did it” answers when a tenant asks for proof

And the pressure is real. Proactive publishing requirements start 1 October 2026, and formal information requests follow from 1 April 2027.

Transparency without evidence accelerates disputes

Transparency increases the volume and speed of questions. If your answers are slow, inconsistent, or unsupported, transparency doesn’t build trust, it accelerates disputes. When evidence is weak, every request becomes a negotiation:

• “Is that what happened?”
• “Where’s the timestamp?”
• “Who recorded this?”
• “Why did it take so long?”

That’s how a right to information quickly becomes a right to challenge.

Under STAIRs, credibility looks like:

A clear view of property risk and compliance status Traceable data lineage (where data came from, when it changed, and why) Fast retrieval without manual chasing Confidence that contractor information can be evidenced when needed

The scalable answer isn’t more spreadsheets. And it’s not replacing your housing management system.

What changes in the operating model

STAIRs explicitly notes providers aren’t required to create new records, so the constraint is real: you must become faster and more defensible with what exists today.

Which means the practical fix is a connected evidence layer: continuous, structured risk insight integrated into the systems where workflow and decisions already happen (HMS / CRM / case management).

Where COSIE Homes sits

COSIE Homes is not your system of record or workflow engine. The data and case management sit within your housing platforms.

What COSIE provides is continuous, structured risk insight, for damp & mould, retrofit performance, Legionella monitoring and more, so evidence retrieval becomes fast, consistent, and defensible.

In other words: COSIE strengthens your existing systems with a connected evidence layer, so “show me” becomes a two-minute query, not a two-week scramble.

“There is ever increasing compliance that social landlords need to meet. COSIE Homes provides us with continuous, trusted evidence that supports actionable insight and proactive decision-making without adding additional administrative system burden.”

— Carl Dixon, CEO, Agamemnon Housing

If you’re reviewing your STAIRs readiness model, we are happy to share how others are structuring their evidence layer, get in touch to find out more.