Awaab's Law Phase 2: the new hazard groups, with examples and timescales

Since 27 October 2025, social landlords in England have had to deal with two things to fixed timescales: significant damp and mould hazards, and every emergency hazard. Phase 2 widens the first of those. From 30 November 2026, significant hazards in seven more groups come into scope.

This guide sets out what each group covers, how the government expects landlords to tell an emergency from a significant hazard, and what stays outside the law. It is based on the draft amendment regulations and the two pieces of Phase 2 guidance MHCLG published in July 2026.

Is Phase 2 law yet?

Not yet. The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 were laid in draft on 13 July 2026. They need a resolution of each House of Parliament before they can be made. The House of Lords Grand Committee considered them on 13 October 2026. When we checked on 16 October, they had not been made, and the government's own guidance still describes the change as "subject to parliamentary approval".

The date in the draft is 30 November 2026. Plan for it, and check legislation.gov.uk for the final text.

Which hazards are added?

The draft adds nine paragraphs of Schedule 1 to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) regulations. Those paragraphs were renumbered and partly merged on 23 June 2026 (SI 2026/571), which is why domestic hygiene and falls on the level now appear as single entries.

Group	HHSRS paragraph	What it covers
Excess cold	2	Exposure to low temperatures: heating, insulation, draughts
Excess heat	3	Exposure to high temperatures the resident can't relieve because of a defect
Domestic hygiene	14A	Food storage and preparation, a home that can't be kept clean, pests, refuse storage, personal hygiene facilities, sanitation and drainage
Falls	18A, 21, 22	Falls on the level (including baths and showers, and changes in level under 300mm), on stairs, steps and ramps, and between levels
Electrical hazards	23	Exposure to electricity
Fire and explosions	23A	Uncontrolled fire, smoke and fumes; explosions
Structural collapse	29	Collapse of all or part of a building, including falling elements

Damp and mould stays in scope. Emergency hazards were already covered for every HHSRS hazard except crowding and space, and that doesn't change.

What are the timescales?

They are the same as Phase 1. Working days exclude weekends, Christmas Day, Good Friday and bank holidays, and day 1 is the day after the landlord becomes aware.

Duty	Timescale
Investigate a potential significant hazard	within 10 working days of becoming aware
Written summary to the tenant	within 3 working days of the investigation ending
Make a significant hazard safe	within 5 working days of the investigation ending
Start supplementary preventative work	within 5 working days (or take steps to), and within 12 weeks at the latest
Emergency hazard: investigate and make safe	within 24 hours, from the moment there are reasonable grounds to believe it is an emergency
If the home can't be made safe in time	secure suitable alternative accommodation at the landlord's expense

What makes a hazard "significant" or an "emergency"?

The amendment rewrites both definitions, for every hazard, damp and mould included. From 30 November:

• a significant hazard poses a risk to the occupier's health or safety that a reasonable landlord with the relevant knowledge would make safe within 15 working days (but not within 24 hours);
• an emergency hazard poses a risk that a reasonable landlord would make safe within 24 hours.

Three points follow from the wording and the guidance.

The 15 working days is a threshold, not a deadline. It decides whether a hazard is in scope. Once it is, the deadlines in the table above apply.

It is an objective test. The guidance says landlords should focus on what a notional reasonable landlord would do, "rather than factoring in their own considerations (e.g. budget or staff availability)".

It turns on the actual household. "Relevant knowledge" means what the landlord knows, or reasonably ought to know, about the occupier's health and circumstances. Unlike an HHSRS assessment, Awaab's Law does not ask about a notional vulnerable occupier, and a hazard does not need to be category 1 to be in scope. The guidance says landlords should generally take reports of vulnerability at face value; a tenant does not need to provide medical evidence.

The guidance also expects temporary measures where they make a home safe quickly: portable heaters while a boiler is fixed, or closing off an unsafe area while a falls or structural problem is dealt with.

How does each group look in practice?

The hazards guidance gives, for each group, the line between significant and emergency, the circumstances that raise the risk, and what is out of scope. In summary:

Group	Likely emergency	Likely significant	Out of scope
Excess cold	Complete loss of heating in cold weather for a vulnerable tenant, or one already unwell from the cold	Home can't be heated adequately, e.g. a window that won't close, with a tenant whose asthma could worsen	Energy costs
Excess heat	Defect stops the home being cooled, and a heat-vulnerable tenant is unwell	Persistent overheating from a landlord-owned heating fault, tenant with a health condition	Heat caused only by the weather, with no defect
Domestic hygiene	Sewage escaping, no usable toilet or washing facilities, rats in a food preparation area	Mice in living areas, unreliable toilets or drainage, worktops that can't be kept clean	Clutter with no build-up of rubbish, pests or contamination; hoarding
Falls	Broken stair handrail for an 80-year-old; broken high-rise window with young children	Cracked stair tread; unguarded drop from a patio with young children	Trips from everyday activity with no defect; misuse of ladders or furniture
Electrical	Exposed live parts; damaged sockets within reach of children	Deteriorated installation needing remedial work	Appliances that aren't part of the building
Fire and explosions	Missing or failed smoke alarm; suspected gas leak; uncontrolled ignition sources	"Limited circumstances" only: the guidance expects most fire hazards to be emergencies	Communal areas covered by the Fire Safety Order; e-scooter storage
Structural collapse	Sudden or worsening large cracks; sagging ceilings; cracked balcony; unstable chimney or brickwork	Slipped roof tiles over a doorway; poorly fixed fittings	Large panel system and similar inherent defects; superficial render cracks

The circumstances that raise the risk differ by group. For cold, the guidance names people aged 65 and over, children under 5, pregnancy, and heart, lung or immune conditions. For falls on the level and on stairs it is people over 60; for falls between levels, children under 5. For electrical hazards it includes anyone who relies on medical equipment that needs charging. A good triage script asks the group-specific question, not just "is anyone vulnerable?".

For electrical work, the guidance notes that EICR codes can help: C1 (danger present) and C2 (potentially dangerous) point towards action, while a C3 on its own usually does not, unless the household's circumstances change the picture.

What stays out of Awaab's Law?

• Fire hazards in common parts of blocks. The amendment creates an "excluded fire hazard": fire risk arising from a deficiency in a part of a building with two or more homes that the Fire Safety Order covers (structure, external walls, common parts and flat entrance doors). Report these to the Responsible Person. Fire hazards inside the flat are in scope.
• Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans are not "work" under the regulations, so they don't run to Awaab's Law timescales.
• Cladding work is excluded, though the landlord must still investigate and make safe by other means.
• Hazards caused wholly or mainly by the tenant's breach of the tenancy. The guidance warns that assuming damp, mould or pests come from "lifestyle" risks breaching the law.
• Hazards outside the landlord's responsibility, such as communal heating in a mixed-tenure block the landlord doesn't control. The landlord should still pursue whoever is responsible.
• Problems that can only be made safe by large-scale structural work, because a reasonable landlord could not do that within 15 working days. Other duties still apply.

Which significant hazards still wait for Phase 3?

After 30 November, a significant (non-emergency) hazard is outside Awaab's Law if it falls in: asbestos and manufactured fibres, indoor air pollutants, lead, radiation, entry by intruders, lighting, noise, water supply, flames and hot surfaces, or collisions, entrapment and ergonomics. In its written statement of 13 July 2026, the government said it "remain[s] committed to extending Awaab's Law in 2027 to the remaining hazards as defined by the HHSRS (excluding overcrowding)". No regulations or date have been published.

Any of those can still be an emergency hazard now: the guidance lists total loss of water supply and broken external doors as examples. The phasing only affects the non-emergency route.

What about hazards reported before 30 November?

Regulation 21 deals with this. The duties for the new groups are triggered when the landlord becomes aware of a potential hazard after 30 November. If the landlord already knew about it, the duties start when a concern about it is reported after that date, or when the landlord learns of a material change, such as worsening symptoms or a worsening hazard.

So the open repairs list matters. A cold, pest or falls job logged in October that the tenant chases in December starts the clock from that December report.

Does it apply to supported housing?

Awaab's Law is implied into leases where the landlord is a registered provider (housing associations and stock-holding councils), the home is social housing, and it is let on a tenancy. The guidance says it covers temporary and supported accommodation provided as social housing by a registered provider under a tenancy, and does not cover anything occupied under a licence.

For supported living and exempt accommodation, the answer depends on who the landlord is and what the resident holds:

• a registered provider letting supported housing on tenancies: covered now, and Phase 2 applies;
• a non-registered provider, or a licence: not covered by the social housing rules. A consultation open until 18 December 2026 asks whether to extend Awaab's Law to supported housing let on licence (our guide to that consultation).

Where a registered provider owns the homes and a managing agent runs them, the guidance says a report to the managing agent is likely to count as the landlord becoming aware. Check your management agreement and take legal advice on your own arrangements.

What if one home has several hazards?

Phase 2 makes this more common: a cold home with damp and a broken window; a sparking socket that is both an electrical and a fire hazard. The guidance is clear: landlords "should generally not worry about classifying which hazard is present and instead focus on fixing the issue".

The Housing Ombudsman made the same point in its March 2026 hazards report: "Where multiple hazards are present in a single home, the assessment will be more complex. Complexity requires clarity and agility in decision-making, often absent in these cases." The report also warned that Phase 1 "could have created some false comfort" about readiness for the extension.

The practical risk is splitting one home's problems into separate jobs for separate trades, each triaged alone. If one of them is an emergency, the 24-hour duty applies to that hazard, whatever else is open.

Who enforces it?

The duties are an implied term of the tenancy, so a tenant can sue for breach. Tenants can also complain to the landlord and then to the Housing Ombudsman, who can consider whether the timescales were met. A landlord has a defence if it can prove it used all reasonable endeavours, which means records: every access attempt, contractor call and letter, with dates. The guidance also expects landlords to keep meeting the Regulator of Social Housing's Safety and Quality Standard.

What should repairs teams do before 30 November?

1. Update the call script for the seven groups, using the questions in the hazards guidance and asking the question specific to each group about who lives there.
2. Check that every route counts. Phone, portal, email, contractors, housing officers, support staff and managing agents can all make the landlord aware. Record the time of the first report, wherever it lands.
3. Let front-line staff call an emergency without waiting for sign-off, with clear examples: no heating for a vulnerable tenant, exposed live parts, a missing smoke alarm, sewage, a loose balcony rail.
4. Review open repairs in the new groups before 30 November, so a chase in December doesn't come as a surprise.
5. Hold temporary measures in stock, such as heaters and dehumidifiers, with a way to log when each was delivered.
6. Separate fire risks in communal areas so they go to the Responsible Person, not into the Awaab's Law queue.
7. Agree a written summary template for each group, including "no hazard found" outcomes, which still need a summary.
8. Check the law has been made before 30 November, and re-read the final text against the draft.

This guide is general information about the law in England, not legal advice. Whether a particular hazard is in scope depends on the facts. If in doubt, take advice from a housing solicitor.