Housing providers, operators and agents are being warned not to view Awaab's Law solely through the lens of damp and mould, as new requirements coming into force later this year expand legal duties to cover a much broader range of housing hazards.
Inventory Base is warning that many organisations may be preparing for the wrong challenge. Compliance is still widely treated as a repairs issue, the company says, despite regulators increasingly viewing it as a question of risk management, evidence and accountability.
Government housing data reveals that while damp remains a significant problem, it is far from the most common serious hazard found in homes.
In 2024, an estimated 940,000 homes contained Category 1 fall hazards on stairs, compared with approximately 635,000 homes affected by excess cold and 155,000 homes with Category 1 damp hazards. According to Inventory Base, these figures show how the next phase of Awaab's Law will fundamentally change the way housing providers identify, assess and respond to risk across their portfolios.
The first phase of Awaab's Law established strict response times for social landlords:
- Emergency hazards must be investigated within 24 hours
- Significant damp and mould must be investigated within 14 days
- Repairs must begin within seven days once a hazard has been confirmed
The next phase extends those principles to a far wider range of hazards, including excess cold and heat, fire and electrical risks, structural hazards, falls, hygiene issues and food safety concerns. Inventory Base believes this represents a significant shift away from reactive, complaint-led housing management towards continuous risk monitoring and evidence-based compliance.
The warning also comes as the sector faces imminent changes to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. The HHSRS (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 come into force on 23 June, simplifying hazard descriptions from 29 to 21 categories, replacing the existing A-J banding with three bands of high, medium and low, and renaming classes of harm to make them easier to explain to landlords and tenants.
Recent housing data underlines the continuing scale of housing quality challenges across England. Around 2.27 million homes failed the minimum Housing Health and Safety Rating System standard in 2024, while nearly four million homes failed the Decent Homes Standard overall. Damp problems affected an estimated 1.4 million homes, the highest level recorded in recent years.
Inventory Base expects three major shifts to emerge over the coming years. Property inspections will become increasingly digital and evidence-driven, risk assessments will evolve from periodic checks into continuous monitoring of property condition, and compliance reporting will become more closely tied to auditable operational data rather than narrative assurance.
Organisations that invest now in stronger inspection processes, property intelligence and compliance reporting will be better placed to meet future regulatory expectations, the company says.
"Damp and mould have been the catalyst for change, but Awaab's Law is rapidly becoming something much bigger," said Sián Hemming-Metcalfe, operations director at Inventory Base.
"There's still a perception in some parts of the sector that this is primarily a damp and mould regulation, but that's a dangerous misunderstanding. The direction of travel is clear: housing providers will increasingly be expected to prove they identified risks, assessed them correctly and acted within a defensible timeframe.
"The real challenge isn't repairs, it's visibility. You can't respond to a hazard within regulatory timeframes if you don't have accurate information about the condition of a property, the risks present and a clear record of when those risks were identified.
"As regulators, residents and legal teams place greater emphasis on evidence, organisations need to be able to demonstrate what they knew, when they knew it and what action they took.
"Those that adapt early won't just reduce compliance risk. They'll gain something far more valuable: visibility across their portfolios. In an environment increasingly shaped by regulation, resident scrutiny and legal accountability, that visibility will be the difference between proactive management and permanent firefighting."
