Software engineering · · 6 min read · By the Cirlume studio
Awaab’s Law and the software landlords use for repairs
What Awaab’s Law asks of the systems social landlords use to log, investigate and repair hazards, and the records they need to keep.
Awaab’s Law puts fixed deadlines on how quickly social landlords in England must investigate and deal with certain hazards in tenants’ homes. The deadlines are measured from the moment the landlord becomes aware of a problem, and a landlord’s defence if it misses one depends on showing what it did and when.
That makes it as much a systems question as a repairs question. If a report sits in a shared inbox, a contractor’s photos live on someone’s phone and the deadline is worked out by hand, the landlord will struggle to meet the timescales or prove that it tried. This article looks at what the rules ask for and what the software behind repairs needs to support.
This is not legal advice. The summary below is based on the government’s published guidance, which itself says it is not an authoritative interpretation of the law. Landlords should take their own legal advice on how the regulations apply to them.
What the law covers, and when
Awaab’s Law is implemented through the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, as amended in 2026. The regulations add a term to social housing tenancies requiring landlords to comply. They apply to almost all social housing let under a tenancy by a registered provider in England.
It is being introduced in phases:
- Phase 1, from 27 October 2025. All emergency hazards, and damp and mould hazards that present a significant risk of harm.
- Phase 2, from 30 November 2026. Extends to excess cold, excess heat, falls on the level, structural collapse, fire and explosions, electrical hazards and domestic hygiene hazards, where they present a significant risk of harm.
- Phase 3, date not yet set. The government intends to extend it to the remaining hazards in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, apart from overcrowding.
For software, Phase 2 matters because a system built only around damp and mould will need new hazard types, triage questions and reporting before 30 November 2026.
The timescales
According to the Phase 2 guidance:
- Emergency hazards: investigate and carry out the work needed to make the home safe within 24 hours of becoming aware.
- Significant hazards: investigate within 10 working days of becoming aware.
- Written summary: give the tenant a written summary within 3 working days of the investigation concluding, unless all required work is finished within that period.
- Safety work: complete work to make the home safe within 5 working days of the investigation concluding.
- Supplementary preventative work: begin within 5 working days of the investigation concluding or, if that is not possible, as soon as reasonably practicable and within 12 weeks.
- Completion: finish within a reasonable period.
If safety work can’t be completed in time, the landlord must arrange suitable alternative accommodation at its own expense. If a tenant later reports a material change, the landlord must investigate again to the same timescales.
Working days, as defined in the regulations, exclude weekends, Christmas Day, Good Friday and bank holidays in England and Wales.
What the software needs to do
Capture awareness, wherever it comes from
The clock starts when the landlord becomes aware, and the guidance lists many routes: a tenant’s report, a routine inspection, a contractor on site for another job, a notification from a third party. A repairs system that only times jobs from when a ticket is formally created will start the clock late.
- Record the date and time the landlord first heard about the issue, separately from when the case was entered.
- Make it easy for contractors and staff on other visits to raise a possible hazard from their phones, with photos.
- Bring reports from every channel, including phone calls, emails, portals and letters, into one case rather than parallel records.
- Link reports about the same home and issue, so a repeat report is recognised and a material change can trigger a new investigation.
Triage with the household in view
Whether a hazard is significant depends partly on who lives there. The guidance says landlords need to consider tenants’ circumstances, including age and physical and mental health. That information needs to be available at triage, kept up to date and protected, because it is sensitive personal data.
Triage screens should ask questions specific to the hazard type and record the reasoning behind each decision, including a decision that a hazard is not significant or not an emergency.
Run the timers from the regulations
Each case can have several deadlines running at once, starting from different events. The system should calculate them, not leave staff to count days:
- a 24-hour clock for emergencies, measured in hours;
- working-day deadlines for investigation, written summary, safety work and the start of preventative work, using a working-day calendar that includes bank holidays;
- the 12-week outer limit for preventative work;
- a fresh set of deadlines when a material change is reported.
Show the next deadline on every case and on dashboards, and alert the right people well before it falls due. Store the rule version each deadline was calculated under, because the hazards in scope change with each phase.
Support investigations in the field and remotely
The guidance allows standard investigations to be done remotely in some cases, for example from photos or video a tenant provides. The system should let tenants upload evidence and let surveyors record findings against it. For on-site visits, a mobile app needs to capture photos, readings and notes with times attached, ideally even without signal.
Recording when an investigation concluded matters, because three of the deadlines run from that date.
Produce and track the written summary
The written summary must say whether a hazard was found and what it is, what action will be taken and roughly when, or why no action is needed, and how to contact the landlord. Generating it from the case record keeps it consistent with what was actually found. The system should record how and when it was sent, whether by post, email, text, in person or left at the home.
Landlords must also keep tenants informed about the timing and progress of work until it is complete, so updates should be logged against the case too.
Keep evidence for reasonable endeavours
Landlords have a defence if they used all reasonable endeavours to comply. The guidance recommends clear records of attempts to gain access, and of all engagement, investigations and communications with tenants.
That means an audit trail that can’t be quietly edited: every contact attempt with its time and method, missed appointments and their reason, offers of alternative accommodation and the response, contractor delays with dates. When a deadline is missed, the record should show why, in a form someone can review months later.
Common gaps in existing systems
- Jobs timed from creation rather than from awareness.
- Deadlines in calendar days, or worked out by hand in spreadsheets.
- Contractor systems that don’t send back completion dates or photos.
- Access attempts recorded as free-text notes, if at all.
- No link between repeat reports about the same home.
- Hazard types fixed to damp and mould, with no room for the Phase 2 list.
When to bring in help
If your repairs system can’t answer “when did we first know, what is the next deadline and what have we done so far” for every open hazard case, it is worth looking at before 30 November 2026. We can review how cases move through your current systems, connect contractor and housing management data, and build the timers, mobile capture and audit trail the process needs. Interpreting the regulations is a job for your compliance and legal advisers, and we work alongside them.