New government guidance on Awaabs Law Phase 2, published on 13 July 2026, highlights the very real challenges facing social landlords. That’s because the legal deadlines aren’t just about fixing policies and procedures. Yes, they are hugely important, but this is all about human behaviour.
It’s about what residents report, what staff notice and how quickly different teams respond. It’s the behaviour change challenges and how you meet them.
A quick recap on Awaab’s Law
Awaab’s Law is named after Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old who died in 2020 from a respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s social housing.
The law that followed gives social landlords fixed deadlines to fix dangerous problems in tenants’ homes. Right now it covers damp, mould and emergencies.
From 30 November 2026, it extends to cold homes, overheating, falls, fire and electrical risks, and hygiene hazards. Emergencies must be made safe in 24 hours. Significant hazards must be investigated in 10 working days and you must undertake relevant safety work within 5 working days of the investigation concluding.
If you would like to speak with me about preparing for Awaab’s Law Phase 2, please make a Free Online Enquiry for a no-obligation discussion, or book a free planning call with me.
The most important takeaway
Every one of those deadlines depends on human behaviour. How residents behave, what staff do and how organisations respond.
Yes, the right policies, procedures and service improvements are hugely important, but on their own they can’t change behaviour.
You need to understand how humans behave, what the core problem or problems are and act accordingly. And working out why people don’t report things until it’s too late is vital.
Five challenges and the key behaviours
Residents don’t report the hazards they’ve learned to live with
Do residents report a cold or hard-to-heat home the same way they’d report a leak? No, a lot will just put up with it. Nobody photographs “my flat is hard to heat” the way they would photograph mould on a wall. And when it’s too late, a legal letter or a formal complaint is the first time you’ll hear of the issue.
Phase 2 is full of hazards like this: excess cold, overheating, trip risks, dodgy electrics. Hazards people normalise and get used to. If your reporting routes are only designed for the obvious stuff, it will be too late when they become a major issue.
Staff aren’t asking, and the clock is already ticking
Do staff proactively ask about heating during unrelated visits, rather than waiting for tenants to raise it? Multiple staff and contractors may have the opportunity to ask residents about issues, but they don’t at the moment.
This matters more than you may realise. Under Awaab’s Law, the legal clock can start the moment anyone in your organisation hears about a potential hazard: a housing officer, a maintenance operative, even a colleague in another team. As the government’s own tenant guidance puts it: “however your landlord finds out about a hazard, the countdown for investigations starts as soon as they are aware of it.”¹
That means the behaviour of asking residents about problems, and the behaviour of logging what staff an contractors here is vital.
Triage decisions are made under pressure, and bias creeps in
Who decides whether a report becomes a case? Usually one person, quickly, with limited information. That’s exactly where unconscious bias lives. The guidance is clear on this: “it is unacceptable for social landlords to assume that the cause of a hazard, such as damp and mould, is due to the tenant’s ‘lifestyle”.²
But telling people not to be biased doesn’t work. Designing decisions so bias has fewer places to hide does: structured questions at the point of report, a clear focus on the household not just the hazard, peer review of borderline calls. This is where behavioural science meets frontline service design and better communications.
Access failures eat into the deadlines
You can’t investigate a home you can’t enter. Missed appointments aren’t always tenants being difficult: they’re usually a predictable product of inflexible slots, unclear letters, and low trust. Every missed appointment eats days out of your 5- and 10-day windows.
There’s a lot more I could say about building trust and reducing friction around access, but they deserve their own blogs.
Communications either build trust or generate complaints
Do your communications build trust? Trust is so often overlooked. Automated messages like “further diagnostic investigation is scheduled” do not build trust. Human-centred communications do.
The written summary the law requires within 3 working days is either the moment a resident feels heard, or the moment they reach for the Ombudsman’s number. Plain language, a real named contact, specific dates and honest expectation-setting are just some of the ways to tackle this.
Where to start
The key will be to spend the time looking at multiple behaviours. Who interacts with residents? What do they say? What communications do they get? Do residents trust you? What do they tell you and what do they not tell you? How do different departments work together?
The list goes on.
If you would like to speak with me about preparing for Awaab’s Law Phase 2, I can walk you through the whole planning process; where you start, which behaviours you target, how to change behaviour and how to confidently measure success. Please either complete a Free Online Enquiry for a no obligation discussion or book a free planning call with me.
Dominic Ridley-Moy
Behaviour Change Network
¹ Awaab’s Law: Guidance for tenants in social housing, GOV.UK, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Available at: gov.uk/government/publications/awaabs-law-guidance-for-tenants-in-social-housing
² Awaab’s Law: Guidance for social landlords — Timeframes for repairs in the social rented sector, GOV.UK, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Available at: gov.uk/government/publications/awaabs-law-guidance-for-social-landlords
