What is Awaab's Law?

In December 2020, a two-year-old boy named Awaab Ishak died from a respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to black mould in his family's housing association flat in Rochdale. His father had reported the problem back in 2017. He was told to paint over it.

The coroner's inquest found that Awaab's death was directly caused by mould in the home. The case led to one of the most significant changes to housing regulation in years.

The Law Itself

Awaab's Law is the informal name for regulations introduced under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. It forces landlords to investigate and fix hazards within strict, legally binding timescales. No more vague promises. No more open-ended repair tickets.

The first phase came into effect in October 2025, covering emergency hazards and damp and mould. Further phases will extend to other hazards including excess cold, fire risks, electrical safety, and structural issues by 2027.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 includes provisions to extend Awaab's Law to the private rented sector too. If you're a private landlord, this is coming for you.

The Timescales

This is where the law has teeth.

Emergency hazards must be dealt with within 24 hours. That means investigated, made safe, or the tenant moved to alternative accommodation within a single day.

Damp and mould (and eventually other serious hazards) follow a tighter cycle than most landlords are used to:

• Investigate within 10 working days of the tenant reporting it.
• Provide a written summary of findings and your remediation plan within 3 working days of the inspection.
• Complete safety works within 5 working days of the inspection.
• Finish all follow-up works to prevent recurrence within 12 weeks.

Miss any of these deadlines and you face fines starting at £7,000, rising to £40,000, and potential criminal prosecution for serious failures.

Why This Catches Landlords Out

Most landlords aren't negligent. They're just slow. A tenant sends a message on a Tuesday, the landlord reads it on Thursday, calls a contractor the following week, and the contractor visits the week after that. Nobody meant any harm. But under Awaab's Law, that timeline is already non-compliant.

The problem is that traditional property management runs on memory, email threads, and best intentions. There's no timestamp on when a message was read. No automatic record of when a job was raised. No audit trail a council inspector can check.

When a local authority asks you to prove you responded within 10 working days, "I think I called someone" is not going to cut it.

How Letted Protects You

This is the kind of problem that software solves well and humans solve badly.

When a tenant reports a maintenance issue through Letted, several things happen automatically. The report is timestamped. The AI responds to the tenant instantly, acknowledging the issue and asking any clarifying questions. A task is created with a clear deadline based on the legal timescales.

That instant response matters. Under Awaab's Law, the clock starts when the tenant reports the hazard. With a traditional letting agent or a landlord checking emails once a day, hours or even days can pass before the tenant gets any acknowledgement. With Letted, the response is immediate, every time, including weekends and bank holidays.

But the real value is the audit trail. Every message, every task, every status update is logged with a date and time. If a council ever asks you to demonstrate compliance, you don't need to dig through emails or reconstruct a timeline from memory. You open Letted and show them:

• Exactly when the tenant reported the issue.
• Exactly when it was acknowledged.
• When the investigation was completed.
• When the written summary was sent.
• When the remedial work started and finished.

Every step, dated and documented, without you having to think about it.

The Difference Between Compliant and Provably Compliant

There's a distinction most landlords miss. You might be doing everything right, responding quickly, fixing problems, keeping tenants safe. But if you can't prove it, you're exposed.

Awaab's Law doesn't just require you to act within the timescales. It requires you to demonstrate that you did. That means written records, clear communication, and a timeline that stands up to scrutiny.

This is where self-managing landlords using WhatsApp and spreadsheets start to struggle. The work might get done, but the evidence is scattered across five different apps and a contractor's text thread.

Letted creates the proof as a byproduct of the workflow. You don't fill in compliance forms. You just manage your property, and the compliance record builds itself.

What to Do Now

If you're a social housing landlord, Awaab's Law already applies to you. If you're a private landlord, the extension is coming and the timescales are unlikely to be more generous.

Start by understanding the deadlines. Then ask yourself honestly: if a tenant reported damp today, could you prove you responded within 10 working days? Could you show a written plan within 3 days of inspection? Could you demonstrate the full timeline to a council officer?

If the answer is no, or even probably, the cost of getting a proper system in place is a fraction of the cost of a single fine.