Awaab's Law and private landlords: damp and mould

Awaab's Law sets fixed deadlines for investigating and fixing damp, mould and other serious hazards. It already applies to social housing, and the Renters' Rights Act 2025 allows it to be extended to private renting. There's no date for that yet, but a consultation on how and when opened on 9 October 2026 and closes on 18 December. Until there is a date, a clear, dated process for handling damp and mould reports protects you and your tenant.

The background

Awaab Ishak was two years old when he died in December 2020. The coroner found that his death was caused by prolonged exposure to mould in his family's social housing flat in Rochdale. His parents had reported the mould repeatedly over several years. It was not fixed.

The inquest in 2022 prompted a national response. The law that followed, introduced through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 and known as Awaab's Law, exists to make sure that a reported hazard like damp and mould cannot sit unaddressed while a landlord decides whether or when to act. It replaces open-ended “reasonable time” obligations with fixed deadlines.

What Awaab's Law requires

Awaab's Law began applying to social landlords on 27 October 2025, covering significant damp and mould hazards and all emergency hazards. From 30 November 2026, subject to Parliament's approval, it takes in more hazards, including excess cold, falls, fire and electrical hazards. The government plans to add the remaining hazards in 2027. The framework in social housing works like this:

• Investigate quickly. Once a potential hazard is reported, the landlord must investigate within a fixed number of working days (10 working days for significant hazards under the social housing rules).
• Put findings in writing. The landlord must give the tenant a written summary of the investigation within 3 working days of it ending. It should say what was found, whether it is a hazard, and what will be done about it.
• Make it safe to a deadline. If a significant hazard is confirmed, the landlord has 5 working days from the end of the investigation to make the home safe. Any further work to stop the problem coming back has to begin within 5 working days too, or as soon as reasonably practicable and within 12 weeks.
• Act on emergencies within 24 hours. Emergency hazards, meaning those posing an imminent risk to health or safety, must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours.
• Complete the work in a reasonable period and keep the tenant informed throughout. If the property cannot be made safe in time, the landlord must offer suitable alternative accommodation.

Two things are worth noticing about this structure. First, the clock starts on the day the tenant reports the problem, before the landlord has even looked at it. Second, the written summary is a legal requirement. The law assumes that everything will be documented, because in a dispute the only question that matters is what you can show you did, and when.

How and when it applies to private landlords

This is where precision matters, because a lot of coverage blurs the line between what is in force and what is planned.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025, whose main provisions came into force on 1 May 2026, provides for extending Awaab's Law to the private rented sector. It sits alongside the Act's other housing-quality reform: applying the Decent Homes Standard, which previously covered only social housing, to private rented properties for the first time.

But neither of these was part of the 1 May 2026 package. The government says the Decent Homes Standard will apply to private rented homes from 2035. Awaab's Law has no start date yet for private renting: the timing, the hazards covered first and the deadlines all depend on regulations that haven't been written.

What has changed is that the government is now asking how to do it. A consultation, Extending Awaab's Law to private rented tenancies and to licences, opened on 9 October 2026 and closes at 11:59pm on 18 December 2026. Landlords can respond. Four things in it are worth knowing.

• It starts from the social housing rules. The government says there is “a case for taking the same approach” on which hazards are covered and on the 10 working days to investigate, and a case for the same 24 hours for emergencies. It asks whether each is right.
• It is less sure about alternative accommodation. It has “concerns about the feasibility” of requiring a private landlord to rehouse a tenant when a home can't be made safe in time.
• It gives no date. It says “the earliest feasible implementation date would be 2027” and asks whether the start should be 2027, 2028 or 2029. Its own impact assessment assumes three phases, in 2028, 2029 and 2030. It sees a strong case for starting with damp, mould and emergencies, as social housing did.
• The tenant would enforce it. The Act makes the duty a term of the tenancy, so a tenant could take the landlord to court for breach of contract. Councils “will not have a direct role in enforcing compliance”, though they keep the powers they have now.

None of that is decided, so any article quoting firm private-sector deadlines is still guessing. We won't do that here. For where this sits in the wider rollout, see our complete timeline of the Renters' Rights Act.

Even so, three things are already true for private landlords:

• Existing law already covers damp and mould. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires you to keep the structure and exterior in repair, and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 requires the property to be fit to live in throughout the tenancy. Serious damp and mould can breach both. Councils can also act under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System.
• The direction of travel is fixed. The extension to the private sector is in the Act. What's still unknown is when it will apply and in how much detail.
• Landlords who build the process now will not need to scramble later. The social housing framework is the template. If your damp and mould response already works to that standard, the arrival of the private-sector regulations changes very little for you.

A practical damp and mould response process

Whether or not fixed deadlines apply to you yet, this is the process worth running every time a tenant reports damp, mould, or condensation. It mirrors the shape of Awaab's Law, and every step produces a record.

1. Log the report

Record the date the tenant reported the issue, how they reported it, what they said, and any photos they sent. If the report came in verbally (a phone call, or a comment during an inspection), write it down and confirm it back to the tenant in writing: “Thanks for letting me know about the mould in the bedroom on Tuesday. I'll arrange an inspection this week.” That confirmation fixes the start date on the record for both of you.

2. Inspect promptly

Visit the property (with proper notice) and look at the problem properly. Take photographs. Try to establish the cause: a leaking pipe or gutter, a failed damp-proof course, cold bridging, or condensation from everyday living in a poorly ventilated space. The cause determines the fix. A dehumidifier and a mould wash will not solve a leaking roof, and repointing a wall will not solve condensation from a bathroom with no working extractor fan. For anything non-obvious, bring in a damp specialist and keep their report.

3. Tell the tenant in writing

After the inspection, send the tenant a written summary: what you found, what you believe is causing it, what you are going to do about it, and when. If works need a contractor, give a realistic timeframe and update it if it slips. This is the step private landlords most often skip. The work gets arranged by phone, nothing is written down, and months later there is no record that the landlord responded at all. Under the social housing version of Awaab's Law this written summary is mandatory; treating it as mandatory now costs you five minutes and closes the biggest gap in most landlords' records.

4. Do the work

Fix the cause as well as the symptom. Keep the contractor's invoice, any specialist report, and before-and-after photographs. If the works are significant, confirm the schedule to the tenant in writing and let them know what access will be needed.

5. Confirm completion and follow up

When the work is done, confirm it to the tenant in writing and ask them to flag if the problem returns. Damp and mould recur, so check again at the next inspection and note it in the inspection report. That shows you kept an eye on the issue after the repair. Our guide to mid-tenancy compliance responsibilities covers how inspections and maintenance records fit into your wider obligations during a tenancy.

Why the written record is the whole game

The Rochdale case shows a clear pattern. The problem was reported repeatedly, and the responses, such as they were, left no adequate trail of investigation, communication, or action. Awaab's Law is really a documentation law. It legislates the paper trail: report logged, investigation within a deadline, findings in writing, works to a schedule.

For a private landlord, this cuts both ways. If a tenant complains to the council, applies to the tribunal, or brings a claim under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act, the question will be: when were you told, and what did you do? Say a landlord can produce a timestamped log: report received on this date, inspection three days later, written summary sent, contractor instructed, works completed, tenant confirmed. That landlord has a defensible position even if the repair took longer than anyone wanted. A landlord who did broadly the same work but can only say “we sorted it, I think it was around spring” has almost nothing.

The same records matter under the Renters' Rights Act more broadly. With Section 21 gone, possession runs through Section 8, and tenants facing possession proceedings sometimes raise disrepair in response. Dated evidence that every report was acknowledged, investigated, and resolved protects you there too. A system that timestamps every document and message you share with tenants, such as HouseFile, builds that record as you go, so it is ready before any dispute starts.

For the communication side, such as acknowledging reports, setting expectations and keeping the relationship constructive, see our guide on how to handle tenant complaints.

Prevention basics

The cheapest damp report is the one that never happens. Most mould in rental properties comes down to a small number of preventable causes:

• Ventilation: Working extractor fans in bathrooms and kitchens, trickle vents on windows kept open, and airbricks not blocked or painted over. During inspections, check the fans actually extract air. A humming fan that moves no air is common.
• Heating: Cold rooms grow mould. A property that is expensive to heat gets heated less, and condensation follows. Insulation and an efficient heating system are damp prevention as much as energy efficiency measures.
• External maintenance: Blocked gutters, cracked render, failed sealant around windows, and slipped roof tiles let water in slowly and invisibly. Walk the outside of the property once a year.
• Plumbing: Slow leaks under baths, behind washing machines, and inside boxed-in pipework can run for months. Look for staining during inspections.
• Tenant guidance: Give tenants practical, non-blaming guidance at move-in: use the extractor fans, dry clothes with a window open, report black spots early. Then act on the reports. Guidance helps, but the building itself still has to be fixed.

A word of caution: “lifestyle” explanations for mould have a poor reputation, and deservedly so, because they featured in the Rochdale case. Condensation from normal living is a design and ventilation problem, so it is the landlord's to manage. If your first response to a mould report is to tell the tenant to open more windows, expect that response to read badly later.

The Decent Homes Standard context

Awaab's Law is one half of the Renters' Rights Act's housing-quality agenda. The other is the Decent Homes Standard, which will apply to private rented properties for the first time. It sets minimum standards covering structural condition, damp and mould, heating, insulation, and general repair.

The government says the standard will apply to private rented homes from 2035, and since 22 June 2026 councils can already issue civil penalties of up to £7,000 for category 1 hazards. Awaab's Law still has no date for private renting. The sensible move is the same for both: assess your properties against the standard now. A property with no damp, adequate heating, decent insulation, and a current maintenance record will meet whatever final shape the standard takes. A property with a recurring mould problem will not. Under the combined weight of the Decent Homes Standard, Awaab's Law, and the fitness-for-habitation rules, that problem is only going to get more expensive to ignore.

Where this leaves private landlords

Awaab's Law exists because a reported hazard was left to sit. In social housing it now imposes fixed deadlines to investigate, respond in writing, and fix. For private landlords, the extension is coming via the Renters' Rights Act. The deadlines and the start date aren't settled. The consultation on both closes on 18 December 2026, and anyone quoting firm private-sector timeframes today is ahead of the law.

You can start now, whatever the commencement date turns out to be. Existing law already requires you to deal with damp and mould, and the process the new law will demand is simply good management: log the report, inspect quickly, put your findings and timeline in writing, fix the cause, and keep a timestamped record of every step. Landlords who work that way already follow the approach Awaab's Law sets out, and will have little to change when it reaches the private sector.