Preparing Your Repairs & Maintenance Team for Awaab’s Law Obligations

Awaab’s Law came into force in October 2025 and has enforced new guidelines for social housing landlords in terms of how they address housing disrepair issues, and particularly damp and mould problems. This has far-reaching implications which require a substantial level of understanding and preparedness on the part of the social housing landlord, not least in making repair and maintenance teams fully aware of these new requirements.

The new legislation has been introduced to address systematic failings which led to the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in 2020. He died in his parents’ social housing accommodation in Rochdale after prolonged exposure to a damp and mould issue that wasn’t attended to and resolved by the landlord. Awaab’s Law now dictates that social landlords respond within a defined and legally binding timeframe, and that also means having repair and maintenance teams ready and available.

Awaab’s Law requirements

Ensuring resident safety has always been a basic duty of a landlord, but Awaab’s Law places new restrictions and demands on landlords, which can be summarised as:

• Landlords must periodically inspect all their properties for signs of damp and mould.
• If an emergency issue has been identified involving a serious damp and mould issue, this must be resolved and made safe within 24 hours.
• If landlords become aware of a potential or existing significant but non-emergency damp and mould issue they must investigate it within 10 working days.
• The landlord must provide a written summary of the inspection findings within three working days.
• If a significant damp and mould hazard is identified, landlords must make the property safe or provide suitable alternative accommodation within five working days of the investigation.
• Supplementary work to resolve a damp and mould hazard and prevent it reoccurring must be completed within 12 weeks.
• Landlords must maintain clear records to document these inspections, findings and remedial action, including all communications with tenants.

Preparing repairs and maintenance teams

Social housing landlords need to undertake a significant period of learning and understanding in light of these new regulations. This includes their own understanding as well as those who work for them and have responsibilities for maintaining social housing rental accommodation. This largely requires implementing a proactive response whereby repair teams are fully prepared and ready to respond swiftly to repair and maintenance requirements, and to maintain a more professional documentation trail.

Here we have outlined some of the key practices and amendments a landlord must address and make their repair and maintenance teams aware of:

• New operational processes – As soon as a landlord is made aware of a damp and mould issue, the clock starts ticking in terms of a response within the defined timeframe, so there needs to be new communication protocols in place to inform repair and maintenance teams of work required, its nature, severity and location.
• Authority – Landlords should also implement processes for who has the authority to inspect a property and to classify a damp and mould issue as ‘emergency’ or ‘non-emergency’.
• Logging jobs – There needs to be a strict, documented audit trail for jobs with unique tracking numbers and a link to all the required details of the repair work.
• Training – Repair and maintenance teams need to be fully trained in identifying the root cause of damp rather than just treating the symptoms. Signs of damp appear in different ways, so it is essential that repair and maintenance teams can identify less visible signs, such as musty smells or bubbling paintwork on walls. This training should also involve the implementation of preventive measures, ie. structural or non-structural repair work which prevents damp and mould reoccurring.
• Technology – Landlords should invest in specialist equipment to assist in identifying areas of damp and mould which might be invisible, such as temperature, humidity and moisture detectors. This may involve a period of training for the repair and maintenance team also.
• Future phases – Currently, the scope of Awaab’s Law only extends to damp and mould issues, but later in 2026 and 2027 this will be extending to cover other common safety issues in social housing accommodation, such as fire safety, structural issues, electrical hazards, hygiene, food safety and extreme temperatures. Landlords need to start preparing their repair and maintenance teams in a similar way, perhaps using these same newly implemented procedures and protocols to cover these extended requirements.

Simple and effective compliance with Awaab’s Law

An easy way to address Awaab’s Law compliance and to implement many of these recommendations outlined above, is to train repair and maintenance teams in using the new Awaab Comply smartphone app. This removes the problem of slow and unresponsive actions and disconnected communications and provides a multi-user platform that connects all the key personnel and develops a comprehensive, documented audit trail of each inspection job.

Using a smartphone app, repair and maintenance teams can investigate complaints, capture evidence, log details and document repairs undertaken. This produces a professional investigation and repair report which satisfies all the requirements of Awaab’s Law, so the easy way to prepare your repair and maintenance teams in the new regulations is to invest in the Awaab Comply app and get your team fully trained up.