Awaab's Law Is Expanding | The Seven Hazards Landlords Must Now Act On

From 30 November 2026, social landlords in England will have 24 hours to investigate and make safe any hazard posing an immediate danger — across seven new categories, not just damp and mould. That is the whole story in a sentence. The harder question, and the one I have been asked repeatedly over the last fortnight, is whether the systems built for phase one can carry the weight of phase two. For most providers, the honest answer is not yet.

Key Takeaways

• Phase 2 of Awaab's Law comes into force on 30 November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval.
• Seven hazard categories join damp and mould: electrical hazards, falls, fire and explosions, excess cold, excess heat, structural collapse and falling elements, and domestic hygiene.
• Emergency hazards must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours.
• Significant hazards follow a fixed chain: investigate in 10 working days, written summary in three, urgent safety work within five, longer-term repairs started within 12 weeks.
• Government impact assessment puts the sector cost at £213.6m, split £136.2m to registered providers and £77.4m to local authorities.
• Phase 3 follows in 2027, covering all remaining HHSRS hazards except overcrowding.

What Is Awaab's Law, and Why Does It Exist?

Awaab's Law is named after Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 aged two after prolonged exposure to mould in his family's Rochdale home. The coroner's findings turned a private tragedy into a national reckoning about how social landlords respond when tenants report a hazard — and, more pointedly, what happens when they do not respond at all.

The law puts statutory clocks on that response. Phase one took effect on 27 October 2025 and covered significant damp and mould hazards plus all emergency hazards. Phase two widens the significant-hazard duties to seven further categories. Phase three, planned for 2027, will extend the same timeframes to every remaining hazard in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, with overcrowding the sole exception.

It applies to registered providers of social housing in England — local authorities and housing associations — covering almost all stock held under a tenancy. Licences, long leaseholds and shared ownership generally sit outside it, though your other repairing and health and safety duties do not disappear just because Awaab's Law does not bite.

What Are the Seven New Hazards Under Phase 2?

The seven categories brought into scope from 30 November 2026 are:

•  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.

Read that list as a safety practitioner rather than a housing officer and something jumps out. These are not variations on a single failure mode. Damp and mould is one discipline with one broad remedy path. Phase two hands you seven distinct disciplines — electrical, fire, structural, thermal, pest control — each with its own competence requirements, its own inspection regime and its own contractor market. The operational reality is that a repairs team trained to triage mould has no particular reason to recognise a failing lintel or a compromised fire door.

How Do the New Timeframes Actually Work?

Two tracks run in parallel. Where a hazard poses an immediate danger, the landlord must investigate and make the property safe within 24 hours. Where a hazard is significant but not an emergency, a fixed sequence applies: investigate within 10 working days of becoming aware; provide the resident with a written summary of findings and proposed actions within three working days of that investigation; complete urgent safety works within five working days of the investigation; and begin any longer-term remedial work within 12 weeks.

The phrase doing the heavy lifting there is "becoming aware". I have spent close to four decades in enforcement, consultancy and training, and if there is one recurring pattern in the case files I have reviewed, it is that organisations lose on the record of when they knew, not on the quality of the eventual repair. A tenant reports a smell of burning to a call handler. The call handler logs it as a general repair. Six weeks later the clock is found to have started on day one, not day forty-two. That is where the liability sits.

What Does the Wider Housing Data Tell Us?

Some context worth holding onto. The English Housing Survey 2024-25 found 2.3 million dwellings in England — 9% of stock — contained a HHSRS Category 1 hazard, broadly unchanged from 2022. Within the social sector the picture is comparatively better: around 5% of social homes contain a Category 1 hazard, against 10% in the private rented sector, with local authority stock (6%) faring worse than housing association stock (4%). Roughly one in ten socially rented homes still fails the Decent Homes Standard.

Two readings follow. The optimistic one is that the sector is starting from a stronger base than the headlines suggest. The realistic one is that 5% of several million homes is still a very large number of properties, and phase two applies to every one of them simultaneously. The government's own impact assessment estimates £213.6m in sector costs — £136.2m falling on registered providers and £77.4m on local authorities — and explicitly notes that some costs could not be monetised at all. When a department tells you it cannot fully cost its own policy, plan for the upper end.

How Should Health and Safety Teams Prepare?

Four things I would be doing now, in this order:

Fix your intake before you fix anything else. Every hazard duty in phase two hangs off the moment awareness is established. That means call scripts, contact centre triage rules and repair-logging categories need rewriting against the seven hazard headings, not against generic trade categories like "electrical" or "joinery". If your system cannot tell you when a report was received and how it was classified, you cannot demonstrate compliance and you cannot defend a claim.

Stress-test the 24-hour path out of hours. The emergency duty does not observe office hours, weekends or bank holidays. Run a live exercise: a reported ceiling crack at 7pm on a Friday. Who assesses it, who has the competence to judge structural risk, and what does "made safe" mean if the answer is decant? Most providers I speak to have a robust out-of-hours route for water and heating, and something considerably thinner for structure and fire.

Check competence, not just capacity. Making a property safe within 24 hours requires someone competent to make that judgement. Under phase one, that person needed to understand mould. Under phase two they may need to assess an electrical installation, a fire compartmentation breach or a falling-elements risk in the same shift. Map who holds what qualification and where the gaps sit — this is where NEBOSH and IOSH-level training in your repairs and asset teams stops being a nice-to-have.

Write the record you would want to read in three years. Awaab's Law will be litigated and regulated on documentation. Timestamps, classification decisions, the written summary to the resident, the reasoning behind a "not significant" finding. Where a hazard is assessed and ruled out, record why. An undocumented decision is, for practical purposes, a decision that was never made.

What Comes Next?

Phase three in 2027 pulls in the remainder of the HHSRS. Separately, the Renters' Rights Act extends Awaab's Law principles to the private rented sector, which is where the Category 1 hazard rate sits at 10% and where compliance infrastructure is thinnest. Anyone advising private landlords should treat phase two as a preview rather than someone else's problem.

The Chartered Institute of Housing's chief executive Gavin Smart framed the extension as being about more than compliance — a culture of listening to residents and acting on their concerns. I would put it slightly less diplomatically. The regulations exist because listening did not happen. The organisations that come through phase two well will be the ones that treated the 24-hour clock as a symptom of a reporting culture problem, not as a scheduling challenge.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Does Awaab's Law Phase 2 Come Into Force?

Phase 2 takes effect on 30 November 2026 in England, subject to parliamentary approval of the amending regulations. Phase 1 guidance remains operative until 11:59pm on 29 November 2026.

Which Hazards Does Awaab's Law Phase 2 Cover?

Seven categories join damp and mould: electrical hazards; falls; fire and explosions; excess cold; excess heat; structural collapse and falling elements; and domestic hygiene, including pest infestations.

What Is the 24-Hour Rule Under Awaab's Law?

Where a hazard presents an immediate danger to a tenant's health or safety, the landlord must investigate and make the property safe within 24 hours of becoming aware of it.

Does Awaab's Law Apply to Private Landlords?

Phase 2 applies to registered providers of social housing in England. The Renters' Rights Act provides for Awaab's Law to be extended to the private rented sector separately.

What Happens in Phase 3?

Phase 3 is planned for 2027 and will extend the same timeframes to all remaining hazards in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, with the exception of overcrowding.

Awaab's Law is one deadline among many, and the next one is already forming. The Astutis Quarterly Newsletter brings the regulatory changes, enforcement trends and practical guidance that matter to your sector straight to your inbox — no digging required. Alternatively, you can sign up for This Week in Health and Safety for more regular updates.