What Landlords Are Legally Required to Do About Damp and Mould

Key points

• Awaab’s Law introduces fixed, legally required timescales for social landlords to investigate and fix reported hazards, including damp and mould, rather than leaving “reasonable time” open to interpretation.
• The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 lets tenants, in the social and private sector, take a landlord to court directly over a home that isn’t fit to live in.
• The Housing Health and Safety Rating System is how councils formally assess hazards, damp and mould among them, and decide whether to force a landlord to act.
• The Decent Homes Standard sets out what a minimum acceptable home should look like, and there has been continued government interest in extending it further.
• Awaab Ishak’s death is the case that changed the policy conversation on damp and mould in this country, and it’s worth understanding why.

This page sets out the general legal landscape as accurately as we can put it. It is general information, not legal advice, and the law in this area continues to develop, so always check current guidance or speak to a professional for anything specific to your situation.

Why Awaab Ishak’s case changed the conversation

In December 2020, a two-year-old boy named Awaab Ishak died after prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s rented social housing flat in Rochdale. A coroner’s inquest, which concluded in 2022, found that mould exposure was linked to his death, and the ruling drew significant national attention to the state of damp and mould in the UK’s rented housing, and to how slowly some landlords had responded to repeated reports of the problem.

The case became a turning point. It moved damp and mould from being treated, in some parts of the housing sector, as a low-priority cosmetic issue to being recognised as something that can be genuinely dangerous, and it built the political pressure behind new legal duties specifically aimed at forcing faster action. That’s the direct route from Awaab Ishak’s death to the law that now carries his name.

What Awaab’s Law actually requires

Awaab’s Law was introduced through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, and it creates a legal requirement for social landlords to investigate and then fix reported hazards within fixed timescales, rather than the vaguer “reasonable time” standard that applied previously. The intent is straightforward: a tenant who reports damp or mould shouldn’t have to wait indefinitely, or make repeated reports, before anything happens.

The detailed timescales are being brought in through secondary legislation and phased in over time, with the first phase focused specifically on damp and mould hazards, and further hazard categories due to follow. Because the exact timescales and phasing have been subject to consultation and change, if you need to know precisely what applies right now to a specific case, check current government guidance or ask a housing adviser rather than relying on a summary like this one.

It’s also worth being clear about scope: Awaab’s Law, as introduced, applies to social housing landlords. Private tenants have a different, though overlapping, set of protections, covered below.

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018

This Act gives tenants a more direct legal route than existed before it. Broadly, it applies to most residential tenancies in England, both social and privately rented, and it puts a legal obligation on the landlord to ensure the home is fit for human habitation at the start of, and throughout, the tenancy.

The significant part, in practice, is that it lets a tenant take their landlord to court directly over disrepair or unfitness, including problems serious enough to be a hazard to health, without first having to go through the local council. Damp and mould can fall within what “unfit” covers where it’s serious enough, though whether a specific case meets that bar is a legal judgement, not something a general guide can determine for you.

The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS)

The HHSRS is the assessment framework that local council environmental health teams use, under powers in the Housing Act 2004, to formally assess hazards in a home, and damp and mould is one of the specific hazard categories it’s built to catch, alongside things like excess cold, fire risk and structural issues.

Councils use the HHSRS to grade the severity of a hazard. Where a hazard is assessed as the most serious kind, a Category 1 hazard, the council has a legal duty to take formal action, which can include serving an improvement notice requiring the landlord to carry out specified work, or in some cases taking more serious enforcement action. Less serious hazards, Category 2, give the council a discretionary power to act rather than an absolute duty.

This system applies across both social and private rented housing, and it’s the mechanism behind a council getting formally involved when a tenant reports damp or mould that isn’t being dealt with.

The Decent Homes Standard

The Decent Homes Standard is a government-set benchmark for what a minimum acceptable home should provide: freedom from serious hazards (assessed via the HHSRS), a reasonable state of repair, reasonably modern facilities, and effective insulation and heating. It has historically applied as a standard for social housing.

There has been ongoing government interest, discussed as part of wider housing and renters’ reform, in extending a legally binding version of the Decent Homes Standard to privately rented homes as well, which would be a significant change if and when it takes full effect. Because this area has continued to move, it’s worth checking the current position rather than assuming a fixed answer either way.

What a tenant can actually do

If damp or mould isn’t being dealt with, a few steps genuinely help:

• Report it in writing, even if you’ve already mentioned it in person or by phone, and keep copies of everything: emails, letters, photos with dates, and notes of any phone calls including when they happened.
• Follow the landlord’s formal complaints process if the initial report doesn’t get a response, since this is usually a necessary step before escalating further.
• Escalate appropriately. Social housing tenants can generally take an unresolved complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service. Private tenants can report a serious hazard to their local council’s environmental health team, who can inspect under the HHSRS and take formal action against the landlord if warranted.
• Get independent advice from a housing advice charity such as Shelter or Citizens Advice, particularly if the problem is serious, ongoing, or affecting someone’s health.
• Keep a record of any health impact, including a GP visit if mould or damp seems to be affecting anyone in the household, since this kind of documentation matters if the situation escalates.

What a landlord should document

Good record-keeping protects everyone involved, and it’s straightforward to build into a normal repairs process:

• The date a hazard was first reported, and by what means.
• When and by whom it was inspected, and what that inspection found.
• What action was agreed, the timescale for it, and who’s responsible for carrying it out.
• Any contractor reports or diagnoses, and copies of what was actually done once work is finished.
• All communication with the tenant about the issue, dated.

A landlord who can show, with dates, that a report was investigated and acted on promptly is in a fundamentally different position, legally and practically, from one who can’t. Given the direction of recent law in this area, that kind of documentation is only going to matter more, not less.

A closing note

This page is intended as clear, general information about the legal landscape around damp, mould and housing conditions in the UK, and every effort has been made to keep it accurate. It is not legal advice, and the specific law, timescales and duties described here continue to evolve. If you are dealing with an actual dispute, whether as a tenant or a landlord, get advice from a solicitor, a housing advice charity, or your local council that’s specific to your circumstances.