Awaab's Law is named after Awaab Ishak, the two-year-old who died in 2020 after long exposure to mould in his family's social rented flat in Rochdale. Its rules on fixing hazards within set times have applied to social housing since October 2025. The government is now consulting on how it should apply to private rented homes.
Most of the discussion has been about timescales. How long should a private landlord have to investigate a hazard, or make it safe? The options on the table range from 12 to 48 hours for emergencies, and from five to fifteen working days for investigations.
Those numbers matter. But one line in the consultation matters more, and it has had much less attention in the trade press. Councils, it says, "will not have a direct role in enforcing compliance with Awaab's Law requirements, such as timescales for making repairs."
So who will?
Under these plans, mostly the tenant. I think that can be fair to landlords who keep good records, but only if a missed deadline goes through the landlord and the ombudsman before it reaches a court.
The tenant, through the courts
Under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, Awaab's Law becomes an implied term of every private tenancy. The consultation is about what that term will require. If a landlord doesn't meet it, the consultation says, "the tenant will be able to take them to court for a breach of contract."
Alternatively, tenants could complain to their landlord and, if that doesn't resolve it, escalate to the new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman. The consultation expects private landlords to have to join the ombudsman in 2028.
Councils keep their existing powers to act on hazards in homes. But the new timescales, the part that would change a landlord's day-to-day obligations, would be policed by tenants and their advisers.
You might think that means little in practice, because most tenants can't afford to sue. Social landlords know otherwise. Claims firms already seek out tenants with damp homes and pass their cases to solicitors for a referral fee, and the government ran a call for evidence on the practice that closed in February. A fixed deadline would make a private tenant's claim much easier to bring.
The courts are already doing this work
Private tenants can already sue when a home is unfit for human habitation. In July, in Harvey v Heaver, a claim under that existing law rather than Awaab's Law, the High Court found a privately rented family home near Chichester unfit, with damp and mould in every habitable room, and ordered the landlord to carry out the work rather than simply pay damages.
That case turned on whether the house was fit to live in, a question of judgement and expert evidence. Fixed timescales would make claims simpler. The question would no longer be whether the landlord acted reasonably quickly. It would be whether they met the deadline.
The defence is in the records
Social landlords have a defence if they took "all reasonable steps to comply" but couldn't, for reasons "genuinely beyond their control", and the consultation is considering how it would work for private landlords. A tradesperson who didn't turn up, a tenant who refused access, a part that couldn't be sourced: these could all count.
But a defence only works if you can prove it. That means records of:
- - When the report came in, and how
- - What you did, and when: who was called, who was booked, and for which date
- - Access attempts, with dates and the method used
- - What you told the tenant, in writing
In my experience, many private landlords don't keep repair records like this. They have a WhatsApp thread, a few emails and an invoice. That has been enough until now, because nobody was counting days. Under these proposals, someone would be.
What I'd ask for
Tenant-led enforcement can be fairer to good landlords than it first sounds. A court looks at evidence, not reputation, and a landlord who acted promptly and wrote it down is in a strong position.
Where I would push back is on the order of things. As proposed, a tenant can go straight to court, with the ombudsman as an alternative. I would make a complaint to the landlord, and then to the ombudsman, a step a tenant must take before suing over a missed deadline, except for emergency hazards.
Tenant groups will say that limits access to the courts, and it does, a little. But most disputes about a late visit or a missed date could be settled quickly by the ombudsman, rather than over months through solicitors, with legal costs at stake on both sides. The consultation already points to the pre-action protocol for housing conditions claims as a way to settle things before court. A required ombudsman step would go one further.
Respond before 18 December
Landlords who think the timescales are unworkable should say so in the consultation. So should landlords who are broadly content, because the enforcement route deserves more debate than it has had.
Whatever the final rules, every landlord should start keeping the kind of records that would hold up if a tenant ever asked a court to look.
