Subject to final parliamentary approval, Awaab’s Law is expected to expand on 30 November 2026, extending statutory requirements to a much wider range of significant housing hazards. For social landlords in England, that means the systems, response times and investigation processes introduced under Phase 1 will need to work across more cases, more property risks and more resident circumstances.
What Changes Under Phase 2?
Phase 1, which came into force on 27 October 2025, introduced statutory timeframes for addressing significant damp and mould hazards and all emergency hazards, excluding overcrowding.
Phase 2 extends the same statutory framework to significant hazards involving:
- Excess cold and excess heat
- Falls on the level, falls on stairs and falls between levels
- Fire and explosions
- Electrical hazards
- Structural collapse and falling elements
- Domestic hygiene, including personal hygiene and food safety
These hazards are drawn from the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).
The key point is simple. From November 2026, more issues that may previously have been managed through routine repairs or compliance processes could also trigger Awaab’s Law deadlines where they present a significant risk of harm.
There are some important distinctions. For example, fire hazards in communal areas already covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 are excluded from Awaab’s Law, while qualifying fire hazards within individual homes can fall within its scope.
What Stays the Same?
The core statutory response times remain the same.
Under Awaab’s Law, social landlords must:
- Investigate potential significant hazards within 10 working days of becoming aware of them.
- Provide a written summary of investigation findings within 3 working days of the investigation concluding, where required.
- Complete relevant safety works within 5 working days of the investigation concluding where a significant hazard is identified.
- Investigate and make emergency hazards safe within 24 hours of becoming aware of them.
A written summary is generally required following an investigation. However, it may not be necessary where a significant or emergency hazard is identified and all required safety and preventative works are completed within three working days. Landlords must still inform the tenant that the work has been completed.
If relevant safety works cannot be completed within the statutory timeframe, landlords must secure suitable alternative accommodation for the affected household at their expense. The legislation also recognises that making a property safe and permanently resolving the underlying problem may require different stages of work.
Where supplementary preventative works are needed to prevent a hazard recurring, landlords must normally begin those works within five working days of the investigation concluding. Where this is not reasonably practicable, they must take steps within that period to ensure the works begin as soon as reasonably practicable, and within 12 weeks.
These preventative works must then be completed within a reasonable period. The statutory deadlines are maximum timeframes, not targets. Where the circumstances require more urgent action, landlords should respond sooner.
Why Phase 2 Matters
The real challenge is not simply the introduction of additional new hazard categories. Most landlords already deal with heating failures, electrical defects, unsafe stairs, structural concerns and hygiene-related issues. The challenge is applying the same level of urgency, consistency and evidence to a wider range of potential hazards.
That means recognising a potential Awaab’s Law case quickly, understanding the resident’s circumstances, carrying out a competent investigation and maintaining a clear record of what happened and when. A repair request that looks routine at first contact may carry greater risk once the condition of the property and the circumstances of the resident are understood.
Landlords will also need to distinguish between hazards that meet the legal threshold for Awaab’s Law and those that remain subject to other existing repair, health and safety or compliance obligations.
Resident Vulnerability Will Become Even More Important
Phase 2 reinforces the importance of assessing the person as well as the property. Age, health conditions, disability and mobility can all affect how serious a hazard becomes for a particular household.
For example, a heating failure may create a very different level of risk for an older resident or a household with a young child than it would in other circumstances. Frontline teams therefore need enough information to identify potential risk from the outset, rather than relying solely on the description of the repair. The government’s guidance makes clear that landlords should consider what they know, or reasonably ought to know, about the health and circumstances of the people living in the property when assessing potential hazards.
However, residents do not need to have a specific vulnerability for a hazard to be considered significant or an emergency. Some hazards present serious risks to anyone exposed to them. Accurate resident information, appropriate data handling and effective communication between teams will all be important in making these assessments consistently.
Are Your Systems Ready for the Extra Volume?
Phase 1 gave landlords a framework for managing significant damp and mould hazards and emergency cases. Phase 2 will test whether that framework is scalable.
Landlords should be asking:
- Can frontline teams recognise potential significant and emergency hazards across the additional categories?
- Can systems track several statutory deadlines at the same time?
- Is resident vulnerability captured and considered consistently?
- Is property information easy to access across different teams?
- Can investigations clearly distinguish symptoms from root causes?
- Can contractors and internal teams share information quickly enough to meet statutory timescales?
- Is there a reliable audit trail showing what was known, when it was known and what action was taken?
These questions are likely to matter just as much as the repairs themselves. Importantly, the statutory clock starts when the landlord becomes aware of a potential hazard, not when a formal investigation is arranged. Effective reporting, triage and escalation processes will therefore be essential.
Good Investigations Will Be Critical
Fast action is essential under Awaab’s Law, but speed alone is not enough. A landlord still needs to understand the underlying cause of the problem.
That may mean looking beyond the immediate defect and considering factors such as heating, ventilation, insulation, moisture, building fabric or structural condition. A clear, evidence-led assessment can help landlords identify the right action first time and avoid repeated visits or temporary fixes that do not resolve the root cause.
This becomes particularly important where a hazard requires both immediate safety measures and longer-term preventative works. For example, temporary heating may be needed to make a property safe following a heating failure, while further investigation and repairs address the underlying problem.
Similarly, restricting access to an unsafe area may reduce an immediate risk of falling, but the defective building element may still require permanent repair.
Under Awaab’s Law, landlords must address the immediate risk within the relevant timeframe and meet the separate requirements for any necessary supplementary preventative works. Reliable investigations and accurate records can help ensure both stages are properly understood, planned and completed.
How Should Landlords Prepare Now?
With Phase 2 due to come into force on 30 November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval, the focus should now be on readiness rather than awareness. Landlords should use the processes developed under Phase 1 as the foundation, then widen them to cover the additional significant hazard categories.
That means strengthening frontline triage, improving property data, reviewing contractor capacity, testing escalation routes and making sure teams understand the statutory timescales. It also means reviewing how investigation findings are recorded, how written summaries are provided to tenants and how outstanding preventative works are monitored through to completion.
The government’s updated Phase 2 guidance includes additional advice on hazard assessment, resident communication and managing investigations. These should form part of landlords’ preparations. The organisations best placed for Phase 2 will be those that treat Awaab’s Law as an operational process across the whole business, rather than a standalone damp and mould requirement.
What Comes Next?
The rollout will continue after Phase 2. The government intends to introduce Phase 3 in 2027, extending the significant hazard requirements to the remaining HHSRS hazards, with overcrowding excluded.
This makes Phase 2 an important step towards a much broader approach to housing health and safety. Although the phased rollout introduces additional statutory requirements over time, landlords must continue to meet their existing legal obligations to keep homes safe and fit for human habitation.
How Cornerstone Can Help
Cornerstone supports landlords with evidence-led property assessments, investigations and root cause analysis.
Our services can help housing providers understand what is happening within a property, identify contributing factors and make informed decisions about the most appropriate next steps. With Phase 2 approaching, accurate investigations and reliable property data will become increasingly important in helping landlords respond quickly, consistently and with confidence.
Identifying the underlying causes of hazards can also help landlords distinguish between immediate safety measures and the longer-term work needed to prevent problems from recurring.
Speak to Cornerstone about preparing for Awaab’s Law Phase 2.
