On 30 November 2026 — 57 days from now — Awaab's Law stops being about damp and mould. Seven more hazard types come under legal timescales, and every one of them is somebody's trade.
Every social landlord in England already has 24 hours to deal with an emergency hazard and fixed timescales for damp and mould. From 30 November those same duties cover electrical hazards, fire and explosions, excess cold, excess heat, falls on the level, structural collapse and domestic hygiene.
Landlords cannot meet statutory timescales without contractors on call to do the work. That is a procurement problem, and it is being solved now rather than in December.
These are the duties in the government's own guidance for social landlords. "Working days" means working days, which is tighter than it sounds over a Christmas fortnight.
Phase 2 covers all emergency hazards plus these significant hazards. The trade column is ours, not the government's — it is how we classify the work.
A statutory deadline is only as good as the firm that turns up. A housing association with 8,000 homes cannot promise to make an electrical hazard safe within five working days unless it already has an electrician under contract who can be there.
Most social landlords do not have that capacity today for seven new hazard types at once. They are buying it — and contracts get let before a deadline, not after it. That is why the work is going out now.
If you have never bid for public sector work because you assumed it was all multi-million frameworks, this is the moment that assumption costs you something. Under the Procurement Act 2023 councils and housing associations must publish contracts above £30,000, and a great many of these will be smaller than you expect.
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Start freePhase 1 came in on 27 October 2025, covering emergency hazards and significant damp and mould. Phase 2 is 30 November 2026. The government has committed to extending the law again in 2027 to the remaining hazards defined by the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, apart from overcrowding.
So the direction is settled: within about a year, almost everything that can go wrong in a social home will have a legal clock attached to fixing it. The contractors who are already on the list will be the ones doing that work.
This page is a plain-English summary for contractors, not legal advice. If you are a landlord working out your duties, read the guidance itself.