Awaab's Law

The regulations (SI 2025/1042) specify that emergency hazards must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours; significant damp and mould hazards must be investigated within 10 working days; a written summary must be provided within 3 working days of the investigation concluding; relevant safety work must be carried out within 5 working days of the investigation concluding; and any further or preventative works must begin within 12 weeks. Failure to meet timescales is enforced by the Housing Ombudsman as severe maladministration with significant compensation. The Regulator of Social Housing can impose financial penalties of up to 10% of provider turnover. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 extends Awaab's Law to private rented sector landlords once implementing regulations are made.

In practice, the value of Awaab's Law is that it converts a vague duty to repair into dated obligations you can hold a landlord to. That only works if the clock is started properly, so how you report matters. Report in writing, describe the hazard and its effect on health, name anyone in the household who is vulnerable — a child, an older person, someone with asthma or a respiratory condition — and keep a copy. A phone call that leaves no record is the commonest reason a tenant cannot later show when the landlord was put on notice.

Worked example: Amina, a social housing tenant, reports black mould spreading across her son's bedroom wall and encloses photographs. The landlord must investigate within the statutory period for significant damp and mould, give her a written summary of what it found and what it will do within three working days of that investigation concluding, and carry out the safety work within the following five working days. When nothing happens for a month, Amina makes a formal complaint, escalates it through the landlord's two-stage process, and then takes it to the Housing Ombudsman, attaching her original dated report, the photographs, and the landlord's silence. The Ombudsman can find severe maladministration and order compensation.

The misconceptions to avoid: the timescales are for investigating and making safe, not for completing every repair, so a landlord that has made the property safe within the deadline is not in breach merely because remedial works continue afterwards. Landlords cannot discharge the duty by blaming condensation on the tenant's lifestyle — they must investigate properly. And the phased commencement matters: the first phase covers damp, mould and emergency hazards in social housing, the wider hazard list follows later, and the extension to private landlords has not yet commenced.

Awaab's Law works together with the fitness for human habitation duty, which lets you sue directly, and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, which lets your council enforce. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 will extend it to private lets. Read our guides to damp and mould rules and housing disrepair.