Awaab’s Law reaches the private rented sector in Phase 3 of the roadmap, on a date the government has marked to be confirmed, subject to consultation. Meanwhile section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 has required your property to be fit for human habitation since March 2020 — damp and mould is expressly a ground — and a tenant can sue you in the county court without involving anybody.
The marketing in this sector runs almost entirely on Awaab’s Law, which does not yet apply to you. The duty that does apply is older, quieter and enforced by the person living in the property — which is why it produces claims rather than headlines.
Because the argument for acting does not depend on it, and a business that needs a false deadline to sell you something is telling you what its advice is worth. The case for dealing with damp properly is that your tenant can already sue, that the fitness duty has been live since 2020, and that the Awaab’s Law timescales are the yardstick a judge will reach for when deciding whether your response was reasonable — whether or not they bind you yet. Ten working days to investigate is not your legal duty. It is, increasingly, what “reasonable” looks like. That is a better reason to act than a date somebody made up.
The most expensive thing in this field is not the damp — it is the wrong fix. Chemical damp-proof injection sold for what was condensation, at four thousand pounds, that changes nothing. Tell us what it looks like and we will rank the probable causes, show what the right and wrong answers cost, and start the response clock. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Six answers is enough for a working diagnosis. It is not a survey — but it is usually enough to stop you buying the wrong remedy.
A triage from symptoms, not a survey. It is designed to tell you which specialist to instruct and which remedy to be sceptical of — the two decisions that account for most of the money wasted in this field.
The traditional model is that you find out when the tenant complains, by which point there is mould on a wall, a distressed household and a paper trail that starts on the back foot. Monitoring inverts that: the property tells you first, and the record of your response builds itself.
A physical inspection with moisture readings, thermal imaging where the pattern suggests a cold bridge, and a written condition record per property. Without a baseline you cannot show whether something is new, and “it was like that when they moved in” is a very weak position without a document.
Temperature, relative humidity and dew point in the rooms that actually matter — the coldest external wall, the bathroom, the main bedroom. Not every room and not every property: monitoring a modern well-ventilated flat produces data nobody reads.
A steamy bathroom is not a problem. Relative humidity above 70% for days on end, against a falling surface temperature, is mould forming before it is visible. Alerts are set on sustained conditions, because the alternative is an inbox nobody opens by week three.
An alert that only tells you something is wrong has moved the problem, not solved it. We triage, attend where it warrants attending, and instruct the right trade — which on a condensation case is a ventilation engineer and emphatically not a damp-proofing salesman.
What was reported and when, what was found, what was done, what the tenant was told and on what date. Almost every disrepair claim we see turns on this rather than on the damp. A dated record of a reasonable response is the whole defence.
Flow sensors on the incoming main in flats above other flats, where an escape of water is not a repair but a claim against you from the leaseholder below and their insurer. This is the one place where the sensor pays for itself in a single event.
We would rather say this plainly than sell you hardware. A sensor cannot fix a failed gutter, a bridged cavity or a leaking waste pipe, and it will happily record the humidity in a property with a genuine building defect for two years while the defect gets worse. Monitoring earns its place where the cause is occupancy and ventilation related, where the property has a history, or where the downside of a leak is a claim from the flat below. On a solid-walled Victorian house with rain penetration, the money belongs in the repointing, not the dashboard. If your property is in that category we will tell you, and we would rather do the survey and walk away than sell a subscription that cannot work.
A survey when you need a diagnosis, monitoring when the property warrants watching, and works quoted separately at contractor rates. Most enquiries need the first and not the second, and we will tell you which you are.
Sensors are £120 per property as a one-off, or included where you take twelve months of monitoring. Remedial works are quoted separately at contractor rates and we take no commission from any contractor, installer or damp-proofing firm — which in this field matters more than in most, because the industry that diagnoses damp usually sells the cure. For reference, treating visible mould runs about £150–£400, extractor fans £250–£450 each fitted, and a positive input ventilation unit £700–£1,200 installed. If the triage points at condensation and your extractors do not work, we will usually tell you what to do on the phone for nothing.
A photograph of the affected area and which wall it is on gets you a useful answer faster than any form. If you have been quoted for damp proofing, send us that too — second opinions are the most common thing we are asked for.
Four questions. We will come back with what we think it is, what it should cost and how fast it needs dealing with.
Be honest — it changes how we schedule rather than what we charge.
Choose as many as apply.
An address if it is urgent, a postcode district if not.
No charge for the conversation. If the tool above suggests condensation and your ventilation is poor, we will often tell you what to do without attending at all.
Check it over. Tapping the button opens WhatsApp with this ready — nothing has been sent yet.
Send this on WhatsAppEvery one of these has a free tool on it. None of them asks for your details before it gives you an answer.
Your outsourced compliance department. Certificates, licences, tenancy duties and local schemes, tracked per property.
Obligation register, twelve-month calendar and a start planfrom £9 a month →Is this property compliant right now — and could you actually get it back if you needed to?
The possession test, scored per propertyfrom £110 →One verified record per property, shared selectively with tenants, agents, solicitors and lenders.
A live passport you can open and explorefrom £8 a month →Not yet, and be careful of anyone telling you otherwise. Awaab’s Law has applied to the social rented sector since 27 October 2025, with Phase 2 extending it during 2026 and Phase 3 in 2027. Extension to the private rented sector sits in Phase 3 of the government’s implementation roadmap and is marked “TBC — subject to consultation”. There is a commitment to consult; there is no commencement date. What already applies to you is section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 — the fitness for human habitation duty, in force for all periodic tenancies since 20 March 2020 — under which damp and mould is expressly a ground and your tenant can sue you directly in the county court. That is the live risk. Awaab’s Law timescales matter because they are becoming the yardstick for what a reasonable response looks like, not because they bind you.
Sometimes, partly, and rarely enough on its own. The statutory exception is where the tenant’s own breach is the whole or main cause of the unfitness, which is a real defence and a narrow one. In practice a property with inadequate extract ventilation, single glazing and a cold external wall will grow mould whatever the household does, and a tribunal or court will see that. The pattern that loses cases is a landlord whose entire response was a letter about lifestyle. The pattern that wins is a landlord who checked the extractors actually moved air, took readings, dealt with any cold surface, and gave the tenant sensible advice. Do the second and the lifestyle point becomes credible, because you have shown it is not an excuse.
Get a second opinion first, from somebody who does not sell the remedy. Rising damp is real but uncommon, and it is diagnosed far more often than it occurs — frequently on the strength of a hand-held conductance meter, which reads high on salt-contaminated plaster whether or not there is any rising damp. It is also physically impossible above ground floor level, which does not stop it being diagnosed there. If the pattern is black speckled mould in corners and behind furniture, worse in winter, that is condensation, and injecting a chemical damp-proof course into the wall will change nothing at all. Use the tool above, then send us the quote — a second opinion is one of the most common things we are asked for and one of the cheapest.
They do something in specific circumstances and nothing in others, and we would rather tell you which you are in. Monitoring earns its place where the cause is occupancy and ventilation related, where the property has a history of recurrence, or where a leak in a flat above other flats would produce a claim from downstairs. It is close to useless where the cause is a building defect — a sensor will faithfully record rising humidity for two years while a failed gutter gets worse. Alerts are set on sustained conditions rather than single readings, because a steamy bathroom is not a problem and an inbox full of false alarms gets ignored by week three. If your property is the wrong candidate we will say so and we will not sell you the hardware.
The case turns on documents far more often than on the damp. What was reported, when, what you did, what you found, what you told them, and on what dates. A landlord who investigated within days, wrote to the tenant, instructed the right trade and kept the record has a defence even if the repair took time. A landlord who did all of that and wrote none of it down usually does not, because they cannot prove any of it. We keep that record as a matter of course — and where a claim is already live we can often reconstruct a good deal of it from contractor records, messages and inspection notes, though it is much weaker than having kept it properly.
More than you would expect, and we would rather do that than charge you for a visit that changes nothing. If the tool above points clearly at condensation and you tell us the extractors do not work, the answer is a ventilation engineer and we will say so on the phone for nothing. What needs attending is anything ambiguous, anything where a claim is live or likely, anything involving a leak that has not been traced, and any case where you need an independent report that will be read by somebody else. If we do not think a visit is worth your money we will tell you.
It is a maintenance service with the evidence attached, and the evidence is the part with the value. Any competent contractor can treat mould. Very few will give you a dated record of what was reported, what was diagnosed, what was done and what the tenant was told, in a form that stands up when somebody disputes it two years later. Since your tenant can sue you directly, and since the fitness duty is judged on whether your response was reasonable, that record is not administration — it is the product.
A landlord who investigated within days, wrote to the tenant, instructed the right trade and kept the dates has a defence. A landlord who did all of that and wrote none of it down does not. That distinction is the whole service.
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