Awaab's Law took effect for social landlords in England on 27 October 2025, forcing registered providers to investigate reported damp and mould hazards within fixed legal deadlines for the first time. The second phase, expected in 2026, will extend the regime to further hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), and the government has confirmed its intention to bring private rented sector homes into scope in a later phase. Landlords who miss the timescales face enforcement through the Regulator of Social Housing, and potentially environmental health action under the Housing Act 2004.
What Awaab's Law Requires and Where It Came From
Awaab's Law is contained in sections 42 to 47 of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. It is named after Awaab Ishak, the two-year-old who died in December 2020 from a respiratory condition linked to prolonged exposure to mould in a Rochdale Boroughwide Housing flat. The law amends the Housing Act 1985 to impose statutory timescales on social landlords for addressing specified hazards.
Phase one, in force since 27 October 2025, covers emergency repairs, significant damp and mould, and any hazard that presents a significant risk of harm to a tenant. It applies to registered providers of social housing in England only. The government has stated that later phases will widen coverage to more HHSRS hazards, with the private rented sector to follow through subsequent regulations.
The Phase One Timescales
Social landlords must now work to three fixed deadlines:
- Emergency hazards: where a significant risk of harm exists, the landlord must investigate within 24 hours of becoming aware and carry out required emergency work as soon as reasonably practicable.
- Significant damp and mould: where the hazard presents a significant risk of harm, the landlord must complete a written assessment within 10 working days of the report, share the findings with the tenant in writing, and begin required repairs within a further reasonable timeframe.
- Access: if a tenant does not grant access, the landlord must make reasonable attempts to obtain it, and can satisfy the duty where access is refused despite reasonable efforts.
The 24-hour and 10-working-day clocks start when the landlord becomes aware of the hazard, not when the tenant formally reports it. Awareness includes anything the landlord should reasonably know: repair reports, contractor notes, complaints and inspection findings all count. A tenant raising mould during a routine visit starts the clock just as effectively as a formal repair request.
What Changes in 2026
The government has consulted on the content of phase two and confirmed its intention to expand the law to cover a wider set of HHSRS hazards, with regulations expected to come into force during 2026. Candidates include excess cold, fire safety, falls on stairs and electrical hazards. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has also signalled that phase three will bring the private rented sector within scope, aligning with the Renters' Rights Act 2025 framework.
Private landlords should prepare now rather than wait for commencement regulations. The practical obligations, fixed investigation windows, written assessments and documented repair histories, will be familiar by the time the sector is brought in, and landlords who build systems early will face less disruption. Shelter has published guidance for tenants on enforcing their rights under the law, and environmental health teams can issue improvement notices under the Housing Act 2004 against non-compliant private landlords independently of the new timescales.
Record-Keeping Obligations
Awaab's Law requires landlords both to act within the deadlines and to prove they did so. The regulations place duties on landlords to keep records of hazard reports, investigations, assessments, remedial work and communication with tenants. In any dispute, the burden falls on the landlord to evidence compliance.
Under phase one, records that matter in practice include:
- Date and time the landlord became aware of the hazard
- Evidence of the investigation, including photographs and condition notes
- The written assessment and the date it was shared with the tenant
- Work orders, completion dates and contractor sign-offs
- Access attempts and tenant responses
The Regulator of Social Housing can require providers to produce this evidence during inspections under the new consumer standards regime. Missing paperwork is treated the same way as missing work. A repair completed on time but not documented offers a landlord no defence.
How Inspection Software Supports Compliance
Manual record-keeping across email threads and paper forms fails under this regime. Deadlines of 24 hours and 10 working days demand timestamped, centralised records, and our property inventory software generates time-stamped, photo-documented inspection reports that give landlords the evidence trail Awaab's Law requires. When an inspector or ombudsman asks when the landlord became aware of a mould report, the answer needs to be a database query rather than a search through inboxes.
Look for these capabilities when choosing a system:
- Automated hazard flagging: the software should detect damp and mould references in inspection notes and repair reports and trigger the investigation clock automatically.
- Deadline tracking: visible countdowns against the 24-hour and 10-working-day thresholds, with escalation alerts before a deadline is breached.
- Photo evidence with timestamps: geolocated, time-stamped photographs that show property condition before, during and after works.
- Tenant communication logs: every report, assessment share and access request recorded against the tenancy.
- Audit-ready exports: the ability to produce a complete compliance file for a single property in minutes.
ARLA Propertymark and the NRLA both advise members to formalise their inspection and record-keeping processes ahead of each regulatory phase. Social landlords already managing phase one report that the administrative load is the hardest adjustment.
Practical Steps for Landlords Ahead of 2026
Landlords in both sectors can act now on five fronts:
- Audit your reporting routes. Every channel a tenant might use, phone, email, portal, contractor, must feed into one system that starts the clock.
- Train staff and contractors on awareness rules. Anyone visiting a property can make the landlord 'aware' of a hazard. Contractors need to know their reports trigger legal deadlines.
- Standardise mould assessments. Use a written template covering cause, extent, HHSRS scoring and required works, so assessments are consistent and defensible.
- Address root causes. The law targets symptoms, but the Regulator's consumer standards expect landlords to tackle underlying issues such as insulation, ventilation and structural defects, not repeatedly repaint over mould.
- Test your evidence trail. Pick a recent damp case and reconstruct the timeline from your records. If you cannot show dates and actions clearly, fix the process before enforcement tests it for you.
The Enforcement Picture
For social landlords, the Regulator of Social Housing can issue consumer standards notices, impose unlimited fines and require remedial action where timescales are breached. The Housing Ombudsman continues to handle individual complaints and has published repeated findings on damp and mould handling since its 2022 Spotlight report. For private landlords, once the sector is brought into scope, local authorities will hold enforcement powers backed by civil penalties, and existing Housing Act 2004 powers remain available in the meantime.
Landlords should monitor gov.uk for the phase two regulations and any commencement dates for the private rented sector. Preparing systems, staff training and record-keeping now costs far less than retrofitting compliance after a deadline breach or an ombudsman ruling.
See the Compliance System in Action
If you manage social or private rented stock, the fastest way to assess whether your record-keeping would survive an Awaab's Law audit is to see a purpose-built system in operation. Book a demo of our property inventory CRM to see automated hazard flagging, deadline tracking and audit-ready reporting across your portfolio, and get set up before the 2026 phase expands your obligations.