Phase 1 today

Awaab’s Law Phase 1 has been in force since 27 October 2025. It covers damp & mould, and — separately — any hazard at all, of any type, once a case is judged an emergency.

What it is

Phase 1’s scope is two-layered: damp & mould is in scope on its own regardless of severity, and every emergency hazard, whatever its type, is in scope too — an emergency-severity electrical, fire or structural case is already covered today, even though those hazard types’ own Phase 2 has not commenced.

The timescales that apply:

• 24 hours — an emergency hazard must be investigated, and made safe, within 24 hours of the landlord becoming aware of it.
• 10 working days — a significant (non-emergency) hazard must be investigated within 10 working days.
• 3 working days — a written summary of the investigation’s findings must be provided within 3 working days of the investigation concluding.
• 5 working days — the safety works that address the hazard must be complete within 5 working days of the investigation concluding (24 hours for an emergency case).
• 12-week long-stop — supplementary preventative works should begin within 5 working days of investigation ending or, if that’s genuinely impracticable, steps must be taken as soon as possible and always within 12 weeks.

How to do it

1. Whether a case is significant or emergency is always your own judgement, recorded on Hazard Triage — the platform never computes, suggests or defaults this determination from any checklist or reading.
2. Where a case is judged an emergency, complete Emergency Actions — the 24-hour make-safe record: what was made safe, when, by whom, your own judgement of the residual risk, and any temporary measure used. GOV.UK’s guidance explicitly permits a temporary measure to satisfy the 24-hour make-safe requirement while permanent works proceed — this 24-hour make-safe duty itself has applied since 27 October 2025, not from any later date.
3. Record each statutory stage as it genuinely happens — see How the statutory clock works for exactly how the dates are computed and re-anchored.

How it integrates

The reasonable-landlord test frames every triage judgement the same way: would a notional reasonable landlord make this hazard safe within 24 hours (emergency) or within 15 working days (significant)? That 15 working days is the cumulative 10 (investigate) plus 5 (make safe) window the clock already implements as two separate stages — it is a triage heuristic for judging severity, never a fourth, standalone deadline. The triage record and the emergency-actions record both feed the evidence bundle’s timeline and the report’s hazard-triage and emergency-actions sections — the same evidence trail whichever hazard type the case involves.

Common problems

• A Phase 2 hazard (say, electrical) has a live 24-hour clock. Correct if the case is genuinely emergency-severity — Phase 1 already covers every emergency hazard, regardless of that hazard’s own Phase 2 status.
• I’m not sure whether to call this significant or emergency. Use the reasonable-landlord test and the hazard-specific indicators on Hazard Triage — the record exists to evidence the basis for your judgement, not to make it for you.
• The written summary deadline looks tight. It’s anchored to when the investigation actually concluded, not to the original 10-day projection — see How the statutory clock works.