Awaab’s Law

Happy new year.  In the last post of 2025, I considered whether Wales should have a general enforcement duty on local authorities as England will do after implementation of the Renters Rights Act.  In this post, I want to ask whether Wales should adopt and incorporate Awaab’s Law, which has been done (in part) in Westminster under the Regulation of Social Housing Act 2023 and the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, which came in to force on 27th October 2025.

Awaab Ishak’s death

Awaab Ishak died on 21st December 2020.  He was two years old.  He lived in a social housing flat.  The Coroner’s narrative conclusion was

Awaab Ishak died as a result of a severe respiratory condition due to prolonged exposure to mould in his home environment. Action to treat and prevent the mould, was not taken. His respiratory condition led to a respiratory arrest.

The flat had extensive mould.  Awaab’s parents and others on their behalf had complained about the state and condition of the flat for some time; his mother was pregnant; the family had asked for re-housing.  The provider had said that the mould was due to “family lifestyle” (those of us who have done disrepair over the years will recognise that kind of phrasing).  Awaab’s parents instructed solicitors, who sent a letter before claim, but the provider had a policy of not undertaking repairs without the consent of the solicitor (ditto).  The Coroner’s prevention of future deaths report said:

The court heard evidence that the impact on health from damp and mould is a widespread national issue. Of particular ·importance is the fact this is not simply a social housing issue.  The same concerns apply as much to the private landlords, where evidence suggests the problem is worse.

As I have written before, please do listen to the harrowing, shocking podcast of Daniel Hewitt, The Trapped.

Awaab’s law

The issue with which Awaab’s Law is concerned arises from the vagueness in the substantive law.  This requires that landlords deal with disrepair and fitness for human habitation issues “within a reasonable time”.  This is classic lawyer talk – it provides this kind of rule because it is dealing with different circumstances in different properties.  From that perspective, it seems the right way of going about things.  Awaab’s law is designed to provide greater specificity of time within which investigations and actions must be taken in respect of hazards giving rise to unfitness for human habitation.  The regulations are complicated (unfortunately), and divide up the hazards between emergency hazards, significant hazards, significant risk of harm, imminent and significant risk of harm, and issues of concern; but they do prescribe certain actions and when those actions must take place.

There is plenty of guidance online, plenty of angst-ridden commentary about the regulations by providers and their representatives, new training courses, and quite a lot of anxiety being expressed about the numbers of potential civil claims and ombudsman complaints.

Now, I’m not sure I have much empathy with the sector concerns about liability, as their job is to provide safe and affordable homes; not homes which are hazardous to health and safety.  But there are some issues with the Regs which we might consider:

(i) The Regs only cover certain of the hazards.  The idea is that they will be rolled out to other hazards over time, with more coming this year.  Damp, mould and fungal growth is the one prescribed area alongside emergency hazards.  This is good, in a way, and the days of “lifestyle” reports are numbered, I suspect.

(ii) The complexity in the Regs is highlighted by the length and detail of the definition regs.  Just consider the following:

(a) “significant hazard” means, in relation to a social home, a relevant hazard that poses a significant risk of harm to the health or safety of an occupier of the social home;

(b) “significant risk of harm” means 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 (but not within 24 hours);

(c) “emergency hazard” means, in relation to a social home, a relevant hazard that poses an imminent and significant risk of harm to the health or safety of an occupier of the social home;

(d) “imminent and significant risk of harm” means 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 within 24 hours.

(iii) Given the findings of the Coroner, it is interesting that the law applies only to certain social housing leases (s. 10A(1)(b), Landlord and Tenant Act 1985) and not the private rented sector.  There is some tenure-based prejudice which one might suggest is going on here.

(iv) We should not lose sight of the fact that the reason why we have this civil law is because of a lack of enforcement by local authorities.  For me, this is a massive point because:

• Rightly or wrongly, local authorities rarely issues notices under the HHSRS against other social housing providers on the basis that they have a complaints system and they can generally be trusted to sort out matters that are brought to their attention.  Data I have seen suggests that may be breaking down, but there is still an issue there.
• Rightly or wrongly (and here, I think, it is wrong), local authorities cannot enforce the HHSRS against themselves in relation to their own housing stock which they manage.
• Although there is a shift in HHSRS enforcement towards a more hardline approach by some local authorities, there remains what is called “compliance” enforcement, ie working with landlords and non-enforcement (other than in the most egregious cases).  We have written about that here and there is an excellent report by the York team on enforcement against slum landlords.
• It creates individual civil law rights for residents to against their landlords, which will result in compensation for the individual tenant and a requirement for specific performance (ie actually doing the work).  In other words, we have private rights at least partly because local authorities don’t enforce.  It is circular.  If local authorities did enforce, then there might not be a need for this kind of regulation.
• Don’t get me wrong – I am absolutely not against civil law individual rights.  They are really important and there is a place for them alongside a functioning regulatory enforcement sector.  But, they tend to favour those who are able to find a lawyer, and who have the tenacity to bring a civil claim.  It also requires a civil court system that can function at speed to deal with emergency applications.  There are lots of concerns expressed about ambulance chasers/claims farmers in the sector.  Consider this post on the Nearly Legal blog.
• A lawyer is, I suppose, a non-essential.  In theory, one can use the complaints system of the social landlord but that requires a bit of knowledge and quite a lot of staying power, especially if you want to got to the Ombuds.

Awaab’s law in Wales?

If you’ve managed to get this far (sorry about the length), you will see that I am ambivalent about Awaab’s law.  In principle, there is nothing wrong, and quite a lot right, with a tighter specification for assessment, inspection and repair activity in rented housing.  The relationship between housing disrepair and health is a known known, so to speak, and remediation works need to be done to rectify hazards in people’s home.

But, we can’t get round the fact that we need it because of the failure of local authority enforcement.  Is individual enforcement – a kind of responsibilisation of occupiers – the right way of going about it?  Does it privilege those who are included, as opposed to those in greater need and therefore more willing to accept the state and condition of their property for whatever reason?

There is a functioning Housing Ombuds Service in England which orders financial compensation at a level which one might anticipate a civil court offering.  We don’t have that in Wales (it’s a massive bugbear of mine – see lots of past posts).   There are, then, issues about the proper enforcement of the obligations and whether we are putting money in to lawyers’ hands at the expense of those organisations/individuals which have the repairing obligation.  I remember the awful statistic from some time ago that Birmingham was spending more on disrepair litigation than on conducting repairs – it still makes me shudder.

So, really, if we were to implement Awaab’s law in Wales, we would need to consider how it would be properly enforced, without the claims farmers etc.

We would also, I think, need regulations which are in plain language and not as convoluted as England (we are really good at that in Wales, as a general rule).

But there are also questions about extent – should it apply to the private rented sector or just the social sector?  What about student housing?  I have views on those questions, but they are quite complex policy issues in the face of quite well-organised housing sectors.

Given the state and condition of rented property in Wales, something needs to be done, and a culture change is required.  I’m just not sure that this is the right way of going about it.