Awaab’s Law: What It Means for Surveyors and the Future of Housing Safety

Awaab’s Law will set out legally enforceable deadlines for social landlords to investigate and fix hazardous conditions such as damp and mould. It takes its name from Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old boy who tragically died in 2020 following prolonged exposure to black mould in his family’s social housing flat.

For surveyors, this is not just another piece of legislation; it is a fundamental shift in expectations around speed, competence, and evidence. In this article, we will look at where Awaab’s Law came from, what it covers, and how it will change the day-to-day work of surveyors going forward. 

Timescales

Awaab’s Law is being implemented in three phases, with the first phase for the social rented sector having taken effect on 27 October 2025. The regulations will subsequently be extended in 2026 and again in 2027, with each phase covering different types of hazards that present a significant risk of harm to tenants. It is, however, important to note that the phased approach does not negate the need for social landlords to address dangerous issues in their homes in the meantime.

Social landlords must continue to meet their legal duties to keep homes safe by fixing disrepair, and ensuring their homes are fit for human habitation and free of dangerous ‘category 1’ health or safety hazards. They must also ensure that they continue to meet the outcomes set out by the Regulator of Social Housing in its Safety and Quality Standard.

Scope: Who Awaab's Law Applies To

Awaab’s Law applies to most social housing occupied under a tenancy and let by registered providers, including social landlords such as local authorities, housing associations, and other providers of social housing.

Key Duties

The new regulations impose strict statutory deadlines for landlords to act:

• Emergency hazards: must be made safe or remedied within 24 hours.
• Potential significant hazards: must be investigated within 10 working days.
• A written summary of investigation findings: must be provided to the tenant within 3 working days of the conclusion of the investigation.
• Undertake relevant safety work within 5 working days of the investigation concluding, if the investigation identifies a significant hazard.

Social landlords must secure the provision of suitable alternative accommodation for the household, at their expense, if relevant safety work cannot be completed within the specified timeframe mentioned above.  It must be provided to all individuals who normally reside in the property as part of the tenant’s family, including children who typically stay overnight at the property at least once a week.

Why This Matters for Surveyors

Surveyors sit at the centre of Awaab’s Law in practice. Their reports, findings, and recommendations will form the evidence base social landlords rely on to demonstrate compliance. This brings both opportunity and responsibility.

Faster Response Times

Landlords must act quickly, which means surveyors will be called out on short notice.

Firms should prepare rapid-response teams and internal Service Level Agreements to deliver inspections and reports within tight deadlines.

However, are these timescales operationally challenging and therefore unrealistic? Recent studies have shown a bottleneck in capacity, with winter months bringing higher demand and longer lead times due to weather, workload, and resource constraints. Depending on the scale of the damp and mould repairs needing to be undertaken, the works may require multi-trade input, specialist drying equipment, or significant property disruption. This could therefore lead to works not being completed within the timescale referred to above. Social landlords may be able to justify their position under the reasonable endeavours defence, or this may lead to social landlords using rogue surveyors, which will clearly undermine tenant safety.

There also seems to be a conflict with timescales between the Pre-Action Protocol for Housing Condition Claims and Awaab’s law, causing uncertainty. Will the Protocol be amended, or will the hazards defined under Awaab’s law be excluded altogether?

Andrew Mazin, National Head of Building Consultancy at Sanderson Weatherall (an independent firm of property agents and chartered surveyors), has commented:

“Landlords will need to have procedures in place to enable swift instructions to surveyors, whether they be in-house or external consultants. Some landlord organisations are arranging frameworks or letting term contracts specifically for damp/mould surveyors to provide the survey service - these can operate, provided that things like the issue of Purchase Orders are as efficient as the response to a problem. This means landlords investing in support staff to provide the additional administration required. But social landlords already operate within tight budgets, so this is likely to mean existing staff having to cope with the additional burden of the response required by Awaab Law”.

Higher Evidence Standards

Survey reports will carry greater legal weight, with such reports now required to document:

• Clear findings on the presence, extent, and causes of the hazard
• Accurately note their findings, whether that is moisture and temperature readings
• Photographic evidence
• Assessment of risk to health and property
• Recommended remedial works with timescales

Consistency, accuracy, and defensibility will be critical.

Competence and Accreditation

Government consultation responses and industry bodies such as the Property Care Association (PCA) have emphasised the need for competent, qualified professionals.

Specifically, the PCA recommends that only Certificated Surveyors in Timber and Dampness in Buildings (CSTDB) be called to assess such issues as the level of competence required to survey damp and mould in properties. This Ofqual-regulated, licence-to-practice qualification involves significant guided learning hours (58 guided learning hours and 320 hours total qualification time) and rigorous formal examination independently vetted by the Awarding Body for the Built Environment (ABBE).

The problem faced by the industry is that the majority of surveyors operate in small, under-5-member businesses, which struggle to attract new entrants. The government is called to provide funding to support employers in giving adequate training to new entrants. Funding should encourage businesses to employ new entrants in the skills they need, rather than only the skills that are available via apprenticeships, which are not available in many specialist construction sectors. Such investment would grow a competent workforce capable of meeting Awaab’s Law timescales without opening the door to unsafe or substandard work.

Andrew says,

"Whilst the CSTDB qualification is recognised regarding damp/mould survey work, very often damp/mould defects arise, not only due to localised defects in a building but also because of major defects in the building fabric. The expertise of the Chartered Building Surveyor, a member of the RICS, should not be overlooked in providing the overall professional advice that social landlords are going to require.

It is true that recruitment into damp/mould/building surveying is not what it should be, and this is partly due to failure to create a proper career structure and failure to compete against the more glamorous careers in IT and AI.“

The use of definitions within the guidance

The current definitions of “significant” and “emergency” repairs should be reconsidered as they are subject to subjectivity. A repair’s classification often depends on the resident’s personal circumstances, such as the age and medical conditions of the resident. This can be difficult for a third-party surveyor or contractor to establish and can lead to inconsistent categorisation across landlords and contractors, uncertainty for enforcement where the classification is disputed, and practical difficulties for contractors attending a job without full background context. It will therefore be incumbent on the landlord and surveyor to collaborate closely, and for clear, perhaps scenario-driven, examples to be given of the “significant” and “emergency” definitions.

How surveyors can prepare now

Here’s a practical checklist for readiness:

1. Review and enhance qualifications - ensure your team holds current damp, mould, and HHSRS-related accreditations, and stay up to date with CPD.
2. Develop rapid-response capability - implement internal procedures for 24-hour or 72-hour investigations.
3. Standardise reporting templates - adopt templates that include consistent data capture, photos, and summary findings.
4. Artificial Intelligence - may be used to help speed up processes and manage volume, but this will be budget-dependent and still subject to human checking.
5. Document inspection methods - include details of tools used, sample points, and limitations, helpful for defending your findings if challenged. Using advanced technology will be invaluable.
6. Communicate and collaborate clearly with landlords
7. Partner strategically - build relationships with remediation contractors and ventilation specialists to offer a complete compliance solution.

Looking ahead

Awaab’s Law marks a turning point for the surveying profession. It pushes the industry toward faster, evidence-driven, and tenant-focused service delivery.

Surveyors who adapt early, building competence, agility, and defensibility into their practice, will not only help landlords comply with the law but also play a key role in improving the safety and health of the nation’s housing stock.

Andrew concludes that,

“From a building surveyor’s perspective, there may be issues of resources and, in places, a lack of qualified surveying staff to deal with the volume of surveys. But the greater problem is the fact that social landlords will have to balance their limited budgets with increasing demands to carry out remedial work.

Landlords may have no choice but to carry out short-term, cheaper remedial work to keep the accommodation usable instead of carrying out major works to a building to remedy defects permanently. The situation may even result in some social landlords having to mothball buildings, leaving them empty while waiting for funds to enable remedial works to be carried out. This measure might, on the one hand, aim to improve the quality of housing stock but might actually result in less housing being fit for habitation”.