Today, the Hazards in Social Housing Regulations 2025, also known as Awaab’s Law, comes into force. Social landlords will be legally required to address all emergency hazards and all damp and mould hazards that risk significant harm to tenants, within fixed timeframes.
Awaab’s Law is named after Awaab Ishak, a child who died in 2020 from a severe respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mould in his home. Awaab’s parents made multiple complaints to their social landlord about the mould issue, but no action was taken.
As a result, the new Social Housing Regulations legally require landlords to:
- Investigate potential emergency hazards and undertake relevant safety work within 24 hours of becoming aware of them.
- Investigate potential significant hazards within 10 working days of becoming aware of them.
- Provide a written summary of findings to the named tenant within three working days of the investigation concluding.
- Undertake relevant safety work within five working days of the investigation concluding, if it identifies a significant hazard.
- Begin any further required works within five working days of the investigation concluding, if the investigation identifies a significant or emergency hazard. If steps cannot be taken forward in five working days this must be done as soon as possible, and work must be physically started within 12 weeks.
- Satisfactorily complete works within a reasonable time period.
- Provide suitable accommodation for the household, at the landlord’s expense, if safety work cannot be completed within specified timeframes.
- Keep the named tenant updated throughout the process and provide information on how to keep safe.
Our Interim Chief Property Officer, Jason Holder, said: “In advance of the new law, we’ve assessed our policy and procedures and made changes where necessary to ensure they comply with the new requirements.
“Damp, mould and condensation training has already been delivered to the immediate frontline teams who will be impacted by this new requirement and will be offered out to wider teams shortly. We’ve identified some capacity issues in Localities 3 and 4 with the increased demand on surveyors, and we’re redirecting resources to clear some of the inspection requests in this area.
“In other areas, we’re already working to the general principles of Awaab's Law, and we've put some IT and reporting changes in place to enable us to start monitoring it effectively.”