What will Awaab’s Law mean in practice?
By Catherine Rowlands
The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025 came into force on 27 October 2025. Commonly known as “Awaab’s Law”, the intention behind the regulations is to enable tenants to compel their landlords to tackle hazards, in particular dampness and associated mould or fungus, promptly and in emergency cases, within 24 hours.
The regulations will apply to any social housing, regardless of when the tenancy was entered into.
Social landlords will need to ensure that they have relevant policies and procedures to make sure that they respond properly where emergency action is required. Training relevant staff to ensure that there is the right mindset and a willingness to be pro-active rather than reactive will be key to success in applying the regulations.
What is emergency action?
The key provision is regulation 5, which provides that the landlord is under a duty to take emergency action within the “emergency action period”. To understand this, we need to unpack the regulations which have nested definitions, rather like a Russian doll.
The duty to take emergency action arises if the landlord:
(a) becomes aware of an issue of concern in relation to the social home, and
(b) has reasonable grounds to believe that there is an emergency hazard affecting the social home…
What is an issue of concern? Well, it’s:
(a) a relevant matter, or
(b) a material change relating to a relevant matter of which a lessor is already aware.
So it’s something relevant.
How will the court interpret this phrase?
We can assume that it is something that is causing “concern” and presumably causing concern to the tenant, or to someone else. And “relevant” must mean relevant to the disrepair obligations on the landlord, as the regulations build on the existing requirements such as section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
There is clearly scope for argument as to whether this first criterion is met. Is it met if the tenant is concerned about something which the landlord is not required to remedy?
The landlord should ensure that they keep records of contact with the tenant, as the question of when the landlord “became aware” is key. If in doubt, act.
Next, regulation 3 defines an “emergency hazard” as “a relevant hazard that poses an imminent and significant risk of harm to the health or safety of an occupier of the social home”.
Again, we need to break this down into its component bits. A relevant hazard is defined in regulation 3(2). The starting point is that it needs to be a prescribed hazard. That means looking at the Housing health and safety rating system (HHSRS) (but looking at the hazard in relation to actual not potential occupiers). These are “hazards” that create any risk of harm to the health or safety of an occupier of a home which arises from a deficiency in the dwelling (whether the deficiency arises as a result of the construction of any building, an absence of maintenance or repair, or otherwise).
It is not enough to say that there is a risk of harm for it to be an emergency hazard: there must be a “significant” and “imminent” risk of harm. Housing lawyers are no strangers to arguments about the meaning of “significant”. The HHSRS Guidance tends to use “significant” in the dictionary sense of “relatively large in amount or quantity”. What may seem significant to a tenant may not seem significant to a landlord, and guidance from the Courts will be required. And how “imminent” does the risk need to be? The Guidance uses the word “immediate” but again, does that mean that harm will happen straight away? Mould might start to affect someone as soon as they come into contact with spores, but it doesn’t lead to significant harm overnight.
Finally, what does “reason to believe” mean in this context? How much evidence must there be before the landlord is under a duty to devote resources to remedy a deficiency in the home? Claimants will no doubt point to the low threshold in homelessness cases, but the analogy is far from evident.
So if the landlord thinks that it is likely that something very bad is likely to happen to the tenant if they do not do works – either repairs or improvements – then they are under a duty to act. They must investigate, and if they find an emergency hazard, then do the works before the end of the “emergency period”. The emergency period is 24 hours from having reason to believe that there is an emergency hazard.
What should landlords be doing now?
The practical upshot of this is that a landlord must have systems for recording reports of “issues of concern”, for assessing them, and for acting on them. Where there is reason to believe that there is an emergency hazard, either repairs or a report must be done within a very short period of time. It is important to ensure that a landlord can evidence compliance, or show that one of the statutory defences applies. It is a defence to show that the landlord used all reasonable endeavours to avoid a breach. Access issues and supply chain issues may be a defence – but only if well recorded and evidenced. And it may be a defence to show that the hazard was the tenant’s fault – but blaming “lifestyle” will not normally wash. Tenants should be able to use their home for normal activities without it leading to condensation, mould and a risk of harm.
If it is not an emergency, then the standard investigation period applies: that is 10 working days (effectively a fortnight as weekends do not count). Further time to carry out works will be given if the tenant and their household are rehoused. Larger landlords may be well advised to have plans for having decant accommodation available at all times.
What the regulations do not do is introduce any new repairing obligations – these remain governed by section 11 and section 9A. However, the old attitude that only reactive repairs are needed will not suffice. The landlord may have to improve properties, have better systems for pre-emptive repairs or simply shorter reaction times than have previously been deemed suitable.
The consequences of not acting in time may be that the tenant obtains an order for specific performance from the Court, and damages for breach of section 10A. Where there is a risk of significant harm, and the landlord lets the harm happen, despite being on notice, damages will also be significant.
Tenants will be referring to the Guidance issued by the Ministry for Housing Awaab’s Law: Guidance for tenants in social housing – GOV.UK which was published on the same day the regulations came into force. This recommends that tenants should use their landlord’s complaints procedure if the landlord fails to act, or make a complaint to the Ombudsman, rather than rush to litigation. It remains to be seen whether the Courts will apply this Guidance when considering the costs claimed by those knocking on doors as we write.
