On 13 July, the Government confirmed that Phase 2 of Awaab’s Law will come into force on 30 November 2026, extending the same fixed repair deadlines beyond damp and mould to a wider range of hazards, including electrical faults, structural defects, fire risks and excess cold. It’s a good moment to ask a question people don’t ask often enough: is the law actually working, or are landlords simply complying with it?
Since October 2025, the law has required social landlords to investigate and remedy damp and mould hazards within fixed timeframes. On paper, the results look promising. Landlords are responding. Contractors are attending. Reports close within the required windows.
Spend time in housing disrepair claim properties, though, and a more complicated picture emerges.
Compliant, but not necessarily resolved
Often, contractors apply only a surface treatment, painting an anti-mould coating over the affected area. It’s quick, it’s visible, and it technically satisfies the requirement to respond. What it doesn’t do is address the ventilation or damp problem that caused the mould to appear in the first place.
The landlord has responded within the timeframe. Whether anyone has actually resolved the underlying issue is a separate question, and one the current framework doesn’t really ask.
The seasonal problem
There’s a timing issue too, one that’s easy to miss unless you’re seeing these properties throughout the year. Outside the colder months, condensation isn’t building the way it will when winter comes, so a freshly coated wall can look genuinely controlled. Underneath the paintwork, the underlying cause hasn’t gone anywhere. Whether it resurfaces in a few months often depends less on which treatment landlords use and more on whether anyone actually fixed the ventilation or damp issue.
Two questions worth asking about Awaab’s Law
This raises two things worth thinking through properly, rather than assuming compliance means landlords have finished the job.
Is it cost effective for landlords?
Sending contractors back to the same property every few months to reapply a coating is not a small ongoing cost. A permanent fix, addressing ventilation or the source of damp directly, is very likely cheaper over time than repeat superficial treatment, even before accounting for the risk of a further claim.
What does it mean for tenants?
For a family living with recurring mould, a fresh coat of paint might look like progress. But if the landlord hasn’t addressed the underlying cause, the health risk hasn’t gone away either. It’s simply harder to see.
What this means in practice
None of this means Awaab’s Law has failed. Fixed timeframes have clearly changed how quickly landlords respond, and that matters. But responding quickly and resolving the problem are not automatically the same thing, and the difference between the two is exactly where tenants can end up falling through the gap.
If mould has returned in your home after a landlord has previously treated it, that isn’t necessarily a sign there’s no solution. It may well mean nobody ever properly addressed the underlying cause, and that’s a conversation worth having with someone who understands housing disrepair claims.
With Phase 2 extending the same principle to a much wider set of hazards from November, getting this right now matters more than ever.
Jim Mallams
