Awaab's Law and the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023

Reviewed by Bradley Askew, Solicitor (non-practising), England & Wales. Reviewed 21 July 2026.

Awaab's Law is now partly in force. Since 27 October 2025, every social landlord in England must investigate and fix dangerous damp, mould and emergency hazards within legally fixed timescales — not the vague "reasonable time" that applied before. From 30 November 2026, seven more hazard categories are added. It does not yet apply to private landlords. The government has committed, through the Renters' Rights Act 2025, to extending it to the private rented sector eventually, but as at July 2026 no commencement date has been set — the timescale remains "subject to consultation."

At a glance

• What it is: section 42 of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 — known as Awaab's Law — which implies a term into social tenancy agreements requiring landlords to meet fixed timescales for investigating and fixing specified hazards.
• Who it currently applies to: registered providers of social housing (councils and housing associations) in England only. It does not apply to private landlords, lodgers, or social housing in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
• Phase 1 (live since 27 October 2025): damp and mould presenting a significant risk of harm, plus all emergency hazards.
• Phase 2 (from 30 November 2026): electrical hazards, falls, fire and explosions, excess cold, excess heat, structural collapse and falling elements, and domestic hygiene (including pest infestations).
• Phase 3 (from 2027): all remaining Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) hazards, except overcrowding.
• Private rented sector: not yet extended. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 gives government the power to do this, but the implementation date is genuinely unconfirmed — treat any specific year you see quoted elsewhere with caution.
• The wider Act: the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 also strengthened the Regulator of Social Housing's powers, introduced competence and conduct standards for senior housing staff, and extended mandatory electrical safety checks to social housing.

Who Awaab's Law was named after, and why it exists

Awaab's Law is named after Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old boy who died in December 2020 after prolonged exposure to mould in his family's social housing flat in Rochdale, managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. A coroner ruled that exposure to mould caused his death and criticised the landlord's failure to act despite repeated complaints. The case prompted a change in the law: rather than leaving landlords to fix hazards within a "reasonable time" — a standard that gave no fixed deadline and was hard for tenants to enforce — Parliament created legally fixed timescales specific enough that a tenant, a court, or the Housing Ombudsman can measure compliance against a clock.

That change is section 42 of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, which received Royal Assent on 20 July 2023. Section 42 works by inserting a new section 10A into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Section 10A implies a term into every social housing tenancy agreement that the landlord will comply with "all prescribed requirements" applicable to that tenancy — with the detailed requirements (the actual timescales, and which hazards they apply to) set out separately in regulations, so government can extend the list of hazards over time without needing a new Act of Parliament each time. That is exactly what is happening now, in phases. A landlord's only statutory defence to a claim under section 10A is proving it used all reasonable endeavours to avoid the breach.

Is Awaab's Law in force? The current position, phase by phase

Awaab's Law is being switched on in three separate phases, each requiring its own regulations. As at July 2026, here is exactly what is live and what isn't.

Phase 1 — live since 27 October 2025

The first phase came into force through The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025 (SI 2025/1042). From 27 October 2025, social landlords must:

• Investigate and make a property safe within 24 hours for any hazard that presents an emergency — an immediate and significant risk to a tenant's safety.
• Investigate damp and mould hazards that present a significant risk of harm within 10 working days, give the tenant a written summary of findings and proposed action within 3 working days of completing the investigation, and — where the hazard presents a significant risk of harm — begin safety works within 5 working days of the investigation and start longer-term remedial works within 12 weeks.

Phase 2 — from 30 November 2026

On 13 July 2026, the government confirmed the date and laid the regulations for the next phase before Parliament: 30 November 2026. Phase 2 extends the same fixed timescales to seven further hazard categories, drawn from the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS):

• Electrical hazards
• Falls (on the level, on stairs, and between levels)
• Fire and explosions
• Excess cold
• Excess heat
• Structural collapse and falling elements
• Domestic hygiene (including pest infestations)

The timescales are the same structure as Phase 1: 24 hours to investigate and make safe an emergency hazard; otherwise, 10 working days to investigate, 3 working days to provide a written summary, 5 working days to start urgent safety work once the investigation concludes, and a 12-week long-stop for longer-term repairs.

Phase 3 — from 2027

The government has confirmed that a third phase, due in 2027, will extend the same fixed-timescale approach to all remaining HHSRS hazards, except overcrowding. The exact commencement date and further detail had not been published as at July 2026 — check gov.uk for updates nearer the time.

Timescales at a glance

Situation	Investigate by	Written summary	Start urgent safety works	Start longer-term repairs
Emergency hazard (any phase)	Within 24 hours, and make safe	—	Immediately, as part of the 24-hour response	As needed
Significant, non-emergency hazard	Within 10 working days	Within 3 working days of investigation	Within 5 working days of investigation	Within 12 weeks (long-stop)

These are the timescales that currently apply to damp, mould and emergency hazards (Phase 1) and, from 30 November 2026, to the seven Phase 2 hazard categories listed above.

Does Awaab's Law apply to private landlords? The honest, verified answer

No — not yet, and there is no confirmed date. This is the point where the most out-of-date advice circulates online, so it's worth being precise.

Awaab's Law currently applies only to registered providers of social housing — local authorities and housing associations. It has no application to private landlords, or to a lodger arrangement with a resident landlord.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 gives government the legal power to extend Awaab's Law to the private rented sector for the first time. But a power is not the same as a commencement date. The government's own implementation roadmap, Implementing the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (published November 2025), places the PRS extension of Awaab's Law in "Phase 3" of the RRA rollout, alongside a modernised Decent Homes Standard for private renting. Its milestones table lists the date for this specifically as:

"TBC — subject to consultation"

The roadmap text is explicit: "We will extend Awaab's Law to the PRS, setting clear legally enforceable timeframes within which PRS landlords must make homes safe where they contain serious hazards... We will consult on the details of this policy, including implementation timescales, in due course."

Be careful with dates you see quoted elsewhere. The same roadmap contains two other, unrelated 2027 and 2028 dates that are sometimes mistakenly attached to Awaab's Law: 2027 is when the RRA's separate tenancy reforms (the abolition of fixed terms, not Awaab's Law) are expected to reach the social rented sector, and 2028 is the target for mandatory landlord membership of the new PRS Landlord Ombudsman. Neither is a confirmed date for Awaab's Law reaching private tenancies. As at July 2026, the private rented sector extension of Awaab's Law has not been consulted on, no regulations have been laid, and no commencement date exists. If a page states a specific year for this with confidence, treat it as speculation, not government policy, and check gov.uk for the current position before relying on it.

Private landlords are not, however, free of hazard-related obligations in the meantime — they already owe duties under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 and Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004 (the HHSRS hazard-assessment and enforcement regime). What's missing, for now, is Awaab's Law's specific fixed clock.

The wider Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023

Awaab's Law is the best-known part of the Act, but it isn't the whole of it. The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 amends the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 and gives the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) significantly stronger powers over the sector as a whole:

• Proactive consumer regulation. Before this Act, the RSH could generally only intervene over consumer-standard failures (such as poor repairs or complaint-handling) where there was a risk of "serious detriment" to tenants. The Act removes that threshold, letting the regulator act on breaches of the consumer standards without waiting for serious harm to occur.
• Competence and conduct standards. Under section 36 of the Act, registered providers must ensure senior housing managers and executives hold, or are working towards, a recognised qualification in housing management.
• Extended electrical safety checks. The Act paved the way for mandatory electrical safety checks in social housing, broadly mirroring the checks already required in the private rented sector.
• Expanded Housing Ombudsman powers, including the ability to publish information about landlord performance and widen the matters it can investigate.
• Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs), a related reporting framework (introduced under the RSH's separate regulatory powers, from April 2023) requiring landlords to collect and publish data across five areas: repairs, building safety, complaint-handling, tenant engagement, and neighbourhood management.

These reforms sit alongside, not instead of, Awaab's Law — together they form the government's post-Grenfell, post-Awaab Ishak drive to make social landlords more accountable for the condition of their stock and the way they treat complaints.

What this means in practice

If you are a social tenant in England: from 27 October 2025, your landlord must act within the timescales above for damp, mould and emergency hazards; from 30 November 2026, the same applies to electrical faults, falls risks, fire and explosion risks, excess cold or heat, structural issues, and pest or hygiene problems. If your landlord misses a deadline, raise it formally in writing, then escalate to the Housing Ombudsman if it isn't resolved — you may also have a breach-of-contract claim.

If you are a social landlord: Phase 2 regulations were laid before Parliament on 13 July 2026, alongside new guidance — now is the time to review your repairs triage process against the seven new hazard categories, well ahead of the 30 November 2026 commencement date.

If you are a private landlord: Awaab's Law does not currently apply to you, and there is no confirmed date for when it will. That said, your existing obligations under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 and the Housing Act 2004's hazard rules are unaffected and remain fully enforceable today. Treat the eventual PRS extension as a planning consideration, not an immediate compliance task — and watch for the promised consultation rather than acting on an assumed date.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Assuming Awaab's Law already covers electrical, fire, cold or structural hazards in social housing. It doesn't yet — those are Phase 2, from 30 November 2026. Only damp, mould and emergency hazards are covered right now.
• Assuming Awaab's Law applies to private tenancies. It does not, and no date for that extension has been confirmed by government.
• Confusing the "reasonable endeavours" defence with a general excuse. It is a narrow statutory defence available to a social landlord facing a breach claim — it requires evidence of genuine, active effort to comply, not simply an explanation for delay.
• Treating Awaab's Law and the Decent Homes Standard as the same thing. They're related but distinct: Awaab's Law sets fixed hazard-response timescales; the Decent Homes Standard sets a broader quality bar for the whole property, and its private-rented-sector version isn't enforceable until 2035.

Not legal advice

This page explains the current and proposed law as published by the UK government and in the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 and Renters' Rights Act 2025 themselves. It is general legal information for tenants, landlords and housing professionals in England, not advice on your specific circumstances, and reading it does not create a solicitor–client relationship. TenancyAgreementService.co.uk is a legal information and document publication, written from a non-practising solicitor's perspective, and is not a firm of solicitors regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. If you are a tenant dealing with an unresolved hazard, or a landlord facing enforcement action or an Ombudsman complaint, speak to a regulated solicitor, the Housing Ombudsman, or Shelter's Expert Housing Advice service for guidance specific to your situation.