Damp, mould and emergencies: Awaab's Law stages (proposed)

Awaab's Law sets deadlines for landlords to deal with damp, mould and other serious hazards. It is in force for social housing. The government is consulting on applying it to private renting; until that is decided it is not law for private landlords.

Who this is for: letting agencies and landlords.

What you are deciding

Whether to work to the proposed stages now, or keep your own response targets.

Your options

• Abide.Rent targets. The default. Each repair has one response target by severity, set by your account.
• Awaab's Law stages (proposed for private renting, not law yet). Damp and mould repairs, and any emergency, also get dated stages to work to. Your response targets still apply to everything else.

How to do it

1. Open Repairs and select Change settings. The account owner chooses the rules for damp, mould and emergencies.
2. From then on, a new damp or mould repair, or one reported as an emergency, shows its Stages with a due time for each.
3. Select Mark done as each stage is completed.
4. For the written summary, write what the investigation found, what will be done and when. It is emailed to the tenants and kept on the repair's trail.

The stages

• Emergency: make the home safe within 24 hours of being told.
• Damp, mould and other significant hazards: investigate within 10 working days; send the tenants a written summary within 3 working days of the investigation; start the works within 5 working days of the investigation.

Working days leave out weekends and bank holidays in England and Wales. Marking the investigation done restarts the later stages from that moment. Each stage shows a Proposed standard label, because that is what it is for a private landlord today.

A worked example

An agency switches to the proposed stages. On Monday 9 November 2026 a tenant reports black mould in a bedroom. The repair shows: investigate by Monday 23 November 2026. The surveyor visits on Thursday 12 November 2026 and the agency marks the investigation done that day, so the written summary is due by Tuesday 17 November 2026 and the works must start by Thursday 19 November 2026. The agency sends the summary on Monday 16 November 2026, quoting £850.00 for a new extractor fan and treatment, and the tenants receive it by email.

What Abide.Rent does for you

• Adds dated stages to damp, mould and emergency repairs when you choose the proposed rules.
• Counts working days without weekends and bank holidays, and restarts the later stages when the investigation is done.
• Emails the written summary to the tenants and keeps it on the trail.
• Labels every stage as a proposed standard, never as a legal deadline.

If something goes wrong

• “This repair has no such stage.”
  What to do: Stages only exist for damp, mould and emergencies when the account uses the Awaab's Law stages. Change it under Repairs → Change settings.
• “Write the summary for the tenant: what was found and what will be done, and when.”
  What to do: The written summary needs at least 20 characters. Say what you found and what will happen next.
• “No tenant on this tenancy has an email address, so the note was not sent. Contact them another way.”
  What to do: Add the tenant's email to the tenancy, or give them the summary another way and note how.

Common mistakes

• Telling a tenant these timescales are the law for private renting. They are proposed.
• Writing a summary that does not say what will be done and when.
• Marking the investigation done before it happened. The later stages run from that moment.

What to do next

• Open Repairs
• The repairs register and response targets
• Contractors and the jobs you send them