Awaab's Law
3. Awareness, triage and categorisation of hazards
The point at which legal obligations begin under Awaab’s Law is when the social landlord becomes aware of a potential hazard (i.e. a relevant matter) or a material change to a potential hazard (i.e. a change in the original reported circumstances). The day the landlord becomes aware of a potential hazard is counted as day ‘zero’, with day one of timeframes commencing the following working day. A social landlord could become aware of a potential hazard or material change to a potential hazard through, for example:
- discovering a potential hazard (or a material change to a potential hazard) during a routine inspection or visit
- carrying out an investigation into a different or related hazard under Awaab’s Law
- being notified by a third party, including contractors
- being notified/made aware by a regulator or other body, such as a local housing authority, fire and rescue authority, local authority building control body, private building control body and/or the Building Safety Regulator
- a tenant raising an issue affecting their home, or someone raising an issue on behalf of a tenant
Environmental monitoring systems can be a useful tool for social landlords to understand the conditions of their properties, which is a key part of Awaab’s Law. These systems may help landlords to support compliance, allowing landlords to monitor factors that may increase the risk of damp and mould, and may notify landlords of potential hazards, depending on how they are used.
Social landlords should engage with tenants to ensure they understand how they can best identify and report issues and encourage them to do so. Landlords may wish to provide tenants with a guide to help them identify hazards so they may be reported and triaged more effectively, which could include preferred ways to report potential hazards. Where a tenant reports a potential hazard to a managing agent for the landlord or a wider part of the business, such as a council officer from a different department, this is likely to establish the landlord’s awareness of the potential hazard. Landlords are therefore advised to implement robust procedures to ensure that potential hazards can be effectively reported and escalated by relevant parties.
Social media platforms may not be an appropriate way to report potential hazards unless the landlord is satisfied it has processes in place that can support this effectively: landlords may wish to advise tenants of the most effective way to report potential hazards.
Timeframes under Awaab’s Law begin as soon as the landlord becomes aware of a potential hazard or a material change to a potential hazard. As such, landlords will be required to make an initial determination as to whether the hazard is a potential significant or emergency hazard. Upon investigation, should a landlord find there is no significant or emergency hazard there are no further requirements under Awaab’s Law. To enable landlords to categorise and triage hazards they should take reasonable steps to understand the circumstances of the tenant, including any vulnerabilities of the household which could worsen the potential impact of the hazard such as age, health conditions or disability. They should be aware that a tenant does not need to have a specific vulnerability to potentially be at risk from certain hazards.
Landlords should not make assumptions on the underlying causes of a potential hazard and may still need to investigate the deficiency before deciding if it is out of scope for Awaab’s Law, noting that other legislation may still apply.
Scenario: Becoming aware of a potential hazard
The tenant informed a maintenance officer, who is an employee of the landlord and was carrying out routine maintenance, that they had noticed damp and mould in their property and wanted the landlord’s help to remove it. The tenant believed these problems have resulted in her gaining a respiratory illness and experiencing stress.
The maintenance officer then passes on these concerns to the housing management team so that they can be actioned under Awaab’s Law timeframes.
In this scenario, the landlord ‘becomes aware’ of the issue when it is first reported by the tenant to a maintenance officer, because they are an employee of the landlord. It is the landlord’s responsibility to have internal procedures established for reporting and escalation.
Given the potential impact on the tenant’s health, once the landlord becomes aware of the issue, they are responsible for investigating the hazard, determining whether it qualifies as a significant or emergency hazard, and completing the necessary safety works within the timeframes set out under Awaab’s Law.
If the maintenance officer was not an employee but instead an independent contractor, the landlord must ensure that clear instructions are provided, requiring the contractor to report any issues raised by tenants directly to the landlord or to inform the tenant how to report further issues.
Whether the landlord ‘becomes aware’ when the contractor becomes aware or when the contractor reports the issue to the landlord is likely to depend on whether the contractor is, legally, acting as an agent of the landlord. Landlords should take legal advice as to the status of their contractors.
3.1 Significant and emergency hazards
For hazards that are in scope of Awaab’s Law there are two potential categories: significant and emergency hazard. For Phase 1 of Awaab’s Law, regulations will cover significant hazards relating to damp and mould, and all emergency hazards.
Social landlords must respond to significant or emergency hazards as soon as possible and within Awaab’s Law timeframes. Depending on the nature of the issue and the circumstances of tenants, the social landlord should prioritise addressing hazards that warrant a quicker response within these timeframes. For example, a broken downstairs window in a property facing a busy road where a child lives could require a faster response than a broken external door in a block of flats occupied by two adults. Landlords should treat Awaab’s Law timelines as a maximum threshold: some hazards may require a quicker response.
3.2 A ‘significant hazard’
A ‘significant hazard’ is one that poses a ‘significant risk of harm’ to the health or safety of a tenant of the social home. A ‘significant risk of harm’ is defined as ‘a risk of harm to the occupier’s health or safety that a reasonable lessor with the relevant knowledge would take steps to make safe as a matter of urgency’.
What a ‘reasonable lessor’ would do will depend on the circumstances of the individual case and should reflect the nature of the problem, tenants’ needs and the scale of works required. Landlords will therefore need to factor in individual circumstances, including the age and physical and mental health of the tenants to assess the likelihood of harm materialising and the potential severity of that harm in the specific circumstances. A tenant does not necessarily have to have a specific vulnerability for a hazard to be deemed a significant hazard: some hazards can pose a danger to anyone. A tenant does not need to provide medical evidence, although landlords should take this into account if it is provided. See section 3.4.
Social landlords should use Awaab’s Law guidance alongside a range of available information to inform decision making including government guidance, such as guidance on damp and mould, and the HHSRS guidance as well as information about the tenant which they already hold or find out about when the hazard is reported. Social landlords may wish to adopt a risk matrix approach within their organisations to help with determining whether there is a significant hazard.
3.3 An ‘emergency hazard’
An emergency hazard is one that poses ‘an imminent and significant risk of harm’ to the health or safety of the tenant in the social home. An ‘imminent and significant risk of harm’ is defined as ‘a risk of harm to the occupier’s health or safety that a reasonable social landlord with the relevant knowledge would take steps to make safe within 24 hours’. This means issues that could cause immediate harm to the health or safety of tenants if not addressed quickly.
Examples of hazards that could be emergency hazards requiring emergency action include, but are not limited to:
- gas leaks
- broken boilers
- total loss of water supply
- electrical hazards such as exposed wiring
- significant leaks
- broken external doors or windows that present a risk to home security
- prevalent damp and/or mould that is having a material impact on a tenant’s health, for example their ability to breathe
- significant structural defects or disrepair
For some of these examples everyone will be potentially vulnerable, such as gas leaks. Social landlords should also consider if the risk is likely to be exacerbated by a specific vulnerability in relation to the tenant or other circumstances (e.g. a broken boiler is likely to be a more severe issue in colder months). Social landlords should use all available information to decide if a hazard is a significant or emergency hazard, with reference to related advice in section 3.2
We expect this requirement to be in line with most social landlords’ approach to responding to emergency repairs. Some hazards such as gas leaks will have their own, possibly shorter statutory timeframes in which the hazards need to be addressed. In these cases, the social landlord must meet the shorter statutory timeframe requirements.
Scenario – determining whether damp or mould in a tenant’s home is a significant or emergency hazard
The tenant reported issues with damp and mould to the landlord. The problem was widespread and most severe in the only bedroom, particularly from the window area extending behind the bed. The tenant also informed the landlord that she was pregnant and experiencing symptoms such as wheezing and shortness of breath.
Based on the initial report, the landlord assessed the situation as a potential emergency hazard requiring further investigation to determine the extent and cause. Accordingly, the landlord arranged for a contractor to attend within 24 hours to investigate the emergency hazard and take action to make the property safe. The contractor visited early the next working day
In this scenario, a reasonable landlord would likely have classified the issue as an emergency hazard, based on the location of the mould, the contractor’s investigation findings and the tenant’s reported vulnerability and symptoms. The presence of mould in areas such as bedrooms or living spaces, particularly where those with pre-existing health conditions reside, poses a serious and immediate risk to health.
Scenario – determining an emergency hazard based on a remote inspection
The tenant reported that the lock bolt on their front door is broken and they are unable to securely close their front door. They have provided a video that shows the issue. The property is a house facing a busy road and the tenant has two young children living in the property. The landlord concludes based on the video evidence that this is an emergency hazard. Accordingly they arrange for a contractor to visit that day to ensure the lock can be replaced and the door can be secured before that night.
In this scenario, the landlord is able to investigate the hazard remotely. While they had 24 hours to address the hazard, they have used their judgement to ensure that the hazard is fixed on the same day it is reported, given the urgency of the risk.
3.4 Information about the tenant
Whether a hazard is a significant or emergency hazard depends on whether it presents a risk of harm to the occupier’s health or safety that a reasonable social landlord with the relevant knowledge would take steps to make safe as a matter of urgency or within 24 hours. The relevant knowledge is defined as meaning the knowledge that the social landlord has, or reasonably ought to have, about the health and circumstances of the occupier.
It is therefore important that social landlords hold good quality information about their homes and who is living in them, and that they record details that have been shared with them, including any circumstances that might make a tenant more vulnerable to a specific hazard, and information on how best to contact the tenant and any reasonable adjustments, for example relating to languages or support needs. This information should be used to assist in determining if a hazard is a significant or emergency hazard and inform next steps, alongside information that landlords should gather when the hazard is first reported. The Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards (PDF, 193 KB) already require social landlords to use relevant information and data to understand the diverse needs of tenants and assess whether housing and landlords’ services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants.
Information about tenants is personal data and may be sensitive. GDPR informed consent requires individuals to be fully aware of how their data will be used and to have the power to control their data by freely agreeing, specifically, and unequivocally to the processing. In recording and handling this data, social landlords must ensure they comply with UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, noting that GDPR places special restrictions on the collection and recording of health data.
When triaging hazards, social landlords must consider all relevant information about the tenant, which they may discover through, for example:
- investigations and any other correspondence with the tenants. Social landlords should seek as much relevant information about the issues as possible.
- conversations with the tenant when the hazard is first reported
- reports from tenants regarding a health risk or vulnerability (or other information as to the impact of the potential hazard or the risk it poses). Tenants may choose to provide medical evidence of a vulnerability. However they are not required to do so, and social landlords should generally take any reports of vulnerabilities at face value
- information received from third parties, for example from medical professionals, social workers or schools
Social landlords do not need to factor in the health or safety effects of a hazard on notional or hypothetical tenants, as they would for an HHSRS assessment.
Reference Notice): This content includes information derived from HM Government’s official publication Awaab’s Law: Draft Guidance for Social Landlords (2024), available on Awaab’s Law: Draft guidance for social landlords The material has been referenced to ensure accuracy and alignment with current UK Government guidance regarding landlords’ responsibilities for addressing damp and mould hazards in residential properties.