There is mould creeping up the wall of your child's bedroom, or the boiler has died in the middle of winter, and you have reported it to the council or housing association more than once. Nothing has moved. For years that was where it stopped, with a repair "logged" and no date attached.
That changed on 27 October 2025. Awaab's Law now gives your social landlord legally enforceable deadlines: 24 hours to make an emergency hazard safe, and for significant damp and mould, 10 working days to investigate and 5 working days from the end of that investigation to make the home safe. It covers social housing in England only, not Wales.
How does Awaab's Law work for social housing tenants?
Awaab's Law is named after Awaab Ishak, the two-year-old who died in 2020 from prolonged exposure to mould in a Rochdale social home his landlord had been told about repeatedly. It writes repair deadlines into your tenancy as an implied term, through a new section 10A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 inserted by section 42 of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023.
Because the deadlines are a term of your tenancy, you can enforce them like any other broken promise in the contract.
The first phase covers two things: emergency hazards, and significant damp and mould.
How quickly must a council or housing association deal with damp and mould?
For significant damp and mould that is not an emergency, three clocks run, plus a fourth for longer-term work.
Your landlord must investigate within 10 working days of finding out about the problem. If you ask for an in-person inspection before the investigation finishes, the 10 working days run from your request instead.
Once that investigation ends, two more deadlines start from that day, not from the day you first reported it. Your landlord must give you a written summary of what they found within 3 working days of the investigation ending, unless all the work needed has already been finished within that time. And they must finish the relevant safety work, so the home is made safe, within 5 working days of the investigation ending.
Where wider work is needed to stop the hazard coming back, that supplementary preventative work must also begin within 5 working days of the investigation ending. If the landlord first needs a further investigation, such as a specialist survey, before the work can start, the 5 working days run from when that further investigation ends. If starting that quickly is not reasonably practicable, the landlord must get it started as soon as it reasonably can, and no later than 12 weeks after the investigation that found the hazard ended. The landlord must then finish the work within a reasonable period.
If the landlord cannot make the home safe in time, which means 24 hours for an emergency and 5 working days otherwise, it must arrange suitable alternative accommodation for your household at no cost to you. That lasts until the safety work is done, unless you turn it down.
What counts as an emergency hazard a landlord must make safe in 24 hours?
An emergency hazard is one that poses a significant and imminent risk of harm. Your landlord must investigate and make the home safe within 24 hours of becoming aware of it.
Government guidance gives examples of hazards that could be emergencies, including a gas or carbon monoxide leak, a broken boiler, total loss of water supply, exposed wiring, a significant leak, a broken external door or window that leaves the home insecure, or damp and mould that is having a real effect on someone's health. Making safe within 24 hours means removing the immediate danger, for example by making a temporary repair or providing heaters, with the full repair to follow.
If you think it is an emergency, say so when you report it, and say why.
How to report damp and mould so the Awaab's Law clock starts
The deadlines only start once your landlord knows about the problem, so how you report it matters.
Report it in writing if you can, through the landlord's repairs line or complaints system, and keep a copy. A dated written report fixes the day the clock starts and gives you a record if a deadline is missed. Describe the hazard, where it is, how long it has been there, and the effect it is having, especially on a young child, an older person, or anyone unwell.
Take photos with dates. If the damp or mould is affecting someone's health, such as a child's asthma, mention it to your GP so there is a medical record, and tell your landlord too, because it shows how serious the hazard is.
Note the date you sent the report, so you can count the working days yourself.
What to do if your landlord misses an Awaab's Law deadline
If a deadline passes, you have two routes, and you can complain and send a letter of claim at the same time. Once you start a court claim, though, the Housing Ombudsman cannot look at the same issues.
Complain first through your landlord's formal complaints procedure, in writing, with the dates and the deadline missed. If that fails, escalate to the Housing Ombudsman, the free complaint service for social tenants. The Ombudsman can order your landlord to put things right and to pay compensation.
Separately, a missed deadline breaks a term of your tenancy, so you can take it to the County Court as a disrepair claim. The claim can also rely on the older duties in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to keep the home in repair, under section 11, and fit to live in, under section 9A. Your landlord has a defence. If it can prove it used all reasonable endeavours to meet the deadline, for example because the delay was outside its control, that breach is excused. A well-drafted letter of claim under the pre-action protocol often gets a landlord moving without a hearing.
Can social housing tenants claim compensation for damp and mould?
You can usually ask for two things, the work done and compensation for living with the hazard and any damage it caused.
Courts usually award a proportion of your rent for the period the problem went unfixed, more for serious and long-running hazards, with no fixed percentage. Our guide on how much compensation you can claim for disrepair explains how those awards are worked out. You can also claim for belongings the damp destroyed, such as clothes, furniture, or a child's mattress.
When does Awaab's Law Phase 2 start?
For social housing, Phase 2 is due to start on 30 November 2026, extending the deadlines for significant hazards to excess cold and heat, falls, structural collapse, fire and explosions, electrical hazards, and domestic hygiene. Fire hazards the building's fire safety rules already cover, such as a damaged communal fire door or the fire door into your flat, stay under those rules rather than Awaab's Law. A third phase, covering the remaining hazards apart from overcrowding, has been announced for 2027 with no date set.
Private renters are on a separate timetable. The government roadmap sets no start date, and the government has still to consult on the timescales. Our guide to Awaab's Law and private renters explains their existing repair rights.
If you think your council or housing association has missed an Awaab's Law deadline, Remedy can check your dates, draft the formal complaint or letter of claim with the right law cited, and help you pull the evidence together. The first assessment is free.
