Awaab's Law Phase 2 explained: the new HHSRS hazards and statutory deadlines for 2026

Awaab's Law was introduced through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 after the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak and places statutory, time-bound duties on social landlords to investigate and fix serious hazards.

Phase 1 of Awaab's Law has been live since 27 October 2025. For most social landlords, the months before that date were spent rewriting contact-centre scripts, redefining repair processes and stress-testing systems against new statutory deadlines for emergency hazards, damp and mould. Some were ready. Many were not.

Phase 2 arrives in 2026 (expected Oct 2026), and it will be harder. Not simply because there are more hazard categories, but because the nature of those hazards changes how landlords have to respond. The teams involved, the processes required and the decisions that have to be made will not map neatly onto what most housing organisations already have in place.

This article explains what Awaab's Law Phase 2 covers, how it aligns with the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), and what social landlords should be doing now to prepare for social housing hazard compliance in 2026.

When does Awaab’s Law Phase 2 come into force?

Awaab’s Law Phase 2 comes into force in 2026. The law is being introduced in stages:

• From 27 October 2025 (Phase 1): Social landlords must address all emergency hazards within 24 hours, and investigate significant damp and mould hazards within fixed timescales, reporting findings back to the tenant.

• In 2026 (Phase 2): The duties extend to a wider range of HHSRS hazards beyond damp and mould.

• In 2027 (Phase 3): The law is expected to cover all remaining HHSRS hazards apart from overcrowding, completing the framework.

What does Awaab's Law Phase 2 cover?

Awaab’s Law Phase 2 covers a wider range of HHSRS hazards beyond damp and mould, including excess cold and heat, falls, structural collapse, fire, electrical hazards and hygiene. Government guidance confirms that Awaab's Law Phase 2 applies to additional significant hazards where there is a significant risk to tenant health or safety, aligned with the HHSRS. The additional hazards expected to come into scope include:

• Excess cold and excess heat

• Falls on stairs, between levels and associated with baths

• Structural collapse and explosions

• Fire and electrical hazards

• Domestic and personal hygiene, and food safety

The same statutory investigation and make-safe principle that governs Phase 1 would apply also here: once a hazard presents a significant risk of harm, a legal clock starts. A failed boiler in an occupied home is no longer just a responsive repair. It becomes a potential excess-cold case with a deadline attached. A loose stair rail triggers falls-related timescales. An overdue electrical inspection carries legal exposure that did not exist before October 2025.

Why is Awaab’s Law Phase 2 expected to be harder than Phase 1?

Phase 2 is harder than Phase 1 because the new hazards do not fit existing repair processes. The Phase 1 hazards, damp and mould, largely sat inside an existing repairs workflow. The Phase 2 hazards do not. Excess cold, structural instability and hygiene failures are more likely to land with building safety teams, compliance functions, asset management or neighbourhood housing officers.

That has three consequences. First, case volumes rise sharply: falls are the most common cause of home injury in England, heating failures spike every winter, and electrical risks are flagged routinely in inspections. Second, many of these hazards, excess cold and heat in particular, are subjective, seasonal and closely tied to tenant vulnerability, which makes triage harder. Third, compliance now depends on coordinated working across housing, repairs, compliance, asset management, customer service and safeguarding, with consistent communication and evidence-gathering throughout.

The question is no longer whether teams know the deadlines. It is whether systems can manage that volume of simultaneous statutory cases without something slipping through.

This is a point echoed across the sector. Danny Bird, who led Notting Hill Genesis's damp and mould response before joining Aster Group, has been a prominent independent voice on getting hazard management right under Awaab's Law:

Phase 1 taught the sector how demanding a single statutory deadline can be. Phase 2 multiplies that across cold, falls, fire and electrical risks and those cases don't live in one team or one system. The landlords who cope will be the ones who stop treating compliance as a series of separate repair jobs and start treating it as one connected process, with every report, deadline and decision visible in one place.
- Danny Bird, Awaab's Law & Housing Safety Consultant

Top 5 priorities: what social landlords should be doing now to prepare for Awaab's Law Phase 2

Preparation for Awaab's Law Phase 2 is less about adding headcount and more about building visibility and control. Practical priorities include:

1. Map your hazard reports to statutory triggers. Front-line staff need to recognise which report types (e.g. a cold home, a loose rail, a faulty socket)  start an Awaab's Law clock once Phase 2 is live.

2. Unify tracking across hazard types. Deadlines run on working days, excluding weekends and bank holidays, and several can run concurrently. A single source of truth beats spreadsheets and disconnected tools.

3. Build an audit trail by default. You should be able to produce a complete history for any case - investigation, written summary, works and supplementary works - quickly and on demand.

4. Move from reactive to proactive. Waiting for a tenant to report a heating failure and then scheduling a repair will not meet the bar if that failure is a significant risk of harm.

5. Account for vulnerability. A hazard that is not an emergency for one household may become one where occupiers are more at risk like young children, pregnant tenants or those with health conditions.

Awaab's Law has rightly raised the bar for what tenants can expect from their homes. Meeting it shouldn't mean asking housing teams to work harder against impossible deadlines. It should mean giving them the technology to see every hazard, every timeframe and every action in one place. That's how compliance becomes something landlords can prove, not just promise.
- Cem Savas, CEO, Plentific

How Plentific can help

Plentific brings hazard reporting, repairs, contractor management and compliance evidence onto one platform and gives social landlords the visibility and control that Awaab's Law Phase 2 demands. That means statutory deadlines tracked automatically across every hazard type, work dispatched and monitored in real time, and a complete audit trail built as each case progresses, ready to evidence compliance to tenants, the Housing Ombudsman and the Regulator of Social Housing.

With Phase 2 approaching in 2026, the time to close the gaps is now.

Talk to our team about how Plentific can support your Awaab's Law Phase 2 readiness.