Awaab's Law came into force in October 2025, introducing mandatory legal timeframes for social landlords to investigate and remediate hazards including damp and mould. The legislation — named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 following prolonged exposure to mould in a social housing property — represents one of the most significant changes to social landlord obligations in years.

What Awaab's Law Requires

The core requirement is simple: social landlords can no longer take an indefinitely passive approach to reported damp and mould. The law introduces enforceable timeframes at each stage of the process, from acknowledgement of a report through to resolution of the underlying cause.

For emergency hazards — where damp, mould or other conditions present an immediate risk to health — the requirement to act begins within 24 hours of a report. For non-emergency hazards, landlords are required to investigate within a defined period and begin remediation work within a set timeline thereafter.

Critically, the law requires resolution of the root cause rather than simply treating visible symptoms. A landlord who applies mould wash to a wall without addressing the underlying condensation, ventilation or structural issue that caused it is not compliant — even if the visible mould temporarily disappears.

Why This Matters for Retrofit

Awaab's Law and PAS2035 retrofit are directly connected. The majority of damp and mould problems in social housing are caused or exacerbated by poor energy efficiency — inadequate insulation, poor ventilation design and thermal bridging that causes cold surfaces where moisture condenses.

A retrofit programme that correctly addresses the whole-house energy performance of a property will, in most cases, also address the conditions that cause damp and mould. This creates a strong alignment between compliance with Awaab's Law and delivery of funded retrofit works under the Warm Homes Plan.

For housing associations managing both obligations simultaneously, integrating their response to Awaab's Law with their retrofit planning is not just efficient — it reduces the risk of investing in stop-gap remediation that will need to be revisited once retrofit works are eventually carried out.

The Shift from Reactive to Preventative Management

Awaab's Law is fundamentally about changing the culture of how social landlords respond to hazards — from reactive and slow to proactive and accountable. The legislation expects landlords to have reporting and response systems in place before hazards are reported, not to be building them after the fact.

In practical terms, this means reviewing existing repair and maintenance processes, ensuring staff understand the legal timelines and their personal responsibilities, and putting monitoring arrangements in place to track compliance across the property portfolio.

Preparing for Compliance

• Audit your existing damp and mould reporting and response process against the new timelines
• Ensure your repairs team understands the difference between symptomatic treatment and root cause resolution
• Review your property portfolio for known damp and mould risk — older, poorly insulated stock is higher risk
• Consider how retrofit assessment findings can inform and prioritise your Awaab's Law response
• Train staff and contractors on the legal requirements and on sensitive communication with tenants
• Build robust record-keeping processes — you need to be able to demonstrate compliance if challenged

The underlying message of Awaab's Law is one that the retrofit sector has long understood: warm, well-ventilated, energy-efficient homes protect residents from the health consequences of cold and damp. The legal framework is new, but the principle is not.