The state of social housing has been under the spotlight for some time now, and damp, mould, and wider safety hazards have moved from background concern to front-page issue. For social landlords in England, that scrutiny has now translated into hard regulatory deadlines, and the bar for how quickly hazards are spotted, investigated, and fixed has shifted considerably.
The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, more commonly known as Awaab’s Law, came into force to make those expectations clear and enforceable. Social landlords across England are now having to rethink how they respond to reports of damp, mould, and other hazards in tenanted homes.
Where Awaab’s Law Came From
The law takes its name from Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old who died in 2020 from a respiratory condition caused by prolonged mould exposure in his home. His parents had repeatedly raised concerns with their social landlord, but the issue went unresolved.
The regulations are designed to act as a legal backstop in exactly those situations, where slow or inadequate responses leave tenants exposed to harm. The wider message from the housing sector is that this isn’t simply about hitting statutory deadlines. It’s about taking residents’ reports seriously from the first time they’re raised.
A Phased Rollout
The regulations are being introduced in three phases, giving the sector time to adjust while putting urgent protections in place straight away.
Phase 1 has been in force since 27 October 2025. Social landlords must now:
- Investigate and make safe emergency hazards within 24 hours. This covers anything posing immediate or significant harm, including dangerous electrics, major leaks, or insecure external doors and windows.
- Investigate significant damp and mould within 10 working days, and make the hazard safe within a further 5 working days.
Phase 1 applies to local authority landlords and registered providers of social housing.
Phase 2 starts in October 2026 and extends the rules to a broader set of significant hazards, including excess cold and heat, fire and electrical hazards, structural collapse and explosions, falls (in baths, on stairs, between levels, or on level surfaces), domestic hygiene, and food safety.
Phase 3 follows in October 2027 and brings in all remaining significant hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), with the exception of overcrowding.
What This Actually Means in Practice
Regulatory expectations are clearly only going one way, and landlord performance will be watched closely from here on. Compliance isn’t a tick-box exercise you complete once and forget about. It’s part of a wider cultural shift towards safety, transparency, and genuine accountability to residents.
Social landlords in England need to be confident their processes can stand up to that scrutiny. That means clear escalation pathways for reports of damp and mould, realistic timescales built into contractor arrangements, proper record-keeping, and a workplace culture where staff treat every concern raised by a resident as worth investigating properly.
Getting the Right Legal Support
For many social landlords, the practical challenge isn’t whether to comply but how to embed compliance into existing operations without grinding service delivery to a halt. That’s where specialist legal advice tends to pay for itself.
Property and housing disputes sit at the meeting point of regulatory, contractual, and litigation risk, so most social landlords benefit from working with a firm that handles these issues regularly rather than as an occasional matter. A firm like Darwin Gray, for example, advises social landlords on managing regulatory change, reviewing processes, and putting practical, defensible compliance frameworks in place. Getting that input early tends to be considerably less costly than dealing with the fallout later.
