Awaab's Law in Scotland: what is different from England, and what is not

This is the biggest single difference. England's regulations bind registered providers of social housing and nobody else. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 gives ministers the power to extend Awaab's Law to private landlords, but that needs its own regulations after a consultation, and the government's implementation roadmap puts it in the final phase with no date attached.

Scotland did not wait. The 2026 Regulations amend two things at once. For social tenants they add damp and mould to the Right to Repair scheme under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. For private tenants they amend the Repairing Standard in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, which now requires that "the house is substantially free from damp and mould", and they write the investigation and commencement duties straight into section 14 of that Act. Any private tenancy the Repairing Standard already applied to is covered. Occupancy agreements that are not tenancies, and mobile homes, are not, because the Repairing Standard never reached them.

For letting agents and portfolio landlords this means Scotland is currently the only part of the UK where a damp or mould report from a private tenant starts a statutory clock.

In England the ten-day investigation is triggered when the landlord becomes aware of a potential significant hazard: a hazard that presents a significant risk of harm. There is a triage step, and the guidance accepts that not every report of a patch of mould will meet it.

Scotland's trigger is wider. The duty bites when the landlord is notified, or otherwise becomes aware, that the house "is or may be affected by damp or mould". There is no seriousness test at the front door. The seriousness test comes at the end of the investigation instead: only where "substantial" damp or mould is found does the five-day commencement duty apply. The regulations do not define substantial. The Scottish Government guidance says to weigh the extent and persistence of the problem, the vulnerability of the people living there and whether there is an underlying structural cause.

The guidance is also direct about condensation. Landlords "must not make assumptions that reports of damp or mould are caused by the tenant's actions" and must not decline to investigate on the basis that the problem is condensation attributable to tenant behaviour. Everyday cooking, bathing and drying laundry are not to be blamed for substantial damp or mould. Investigations are expected to be in person unless there is a good reason otherwise, and the person doing them must be competent, which both nations define the same way: someone who in the landlord's reasonable opinion has the skills and experience to make the call.

England's five-day deadline is for relevant safety work, the work that stops the hazard presenting a significant risk of harm. The longer-term preventative work has to begin within five working days, or within twelve weeks where that is not reasonably practicable, but there is no fixed date by which the underlying problem must be fixed.

Scotland's five-day deadline is to commence the repair, which can be a lighter bar at the start. The guidance gives the example of a mould wash and ventilation advice counting as commencement even if a fan is fitted later. But for social landlords the regulations then add "substantial damp or mould" to the schedule of qualifying repairs under the Right to Repair scheme with a maximum completion period of 20 working days. The existing scheme already sets targets of between one and seven working days for things like a loss of power or a blocked flue, so social landlords know the mechanism. The usual £350 cost cap on qualifying repairs does not apply to the damp and mould duties.

Private landlords in Scotland get no fixed completion period. The guidance says the work must be completed "within a reasonable time after the date of the investigation", and the First-tier Tribunal will decide what that means case by case.

England's regulations create an emergency hazard category: an imminent and significant risk of harm that must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours. From 30 November 2026 that sits alongside seven new groups of significant hazard under Phase 2, and the government has said Phase 3 in 2027 will cover the rest of the HHSRS list apart from overcrowding.

The Scottish regulations have none of that. They cover damp and mould, nothing else, and they contain no emergency category. A severe case still runs on the same ten-day investigation clock, although nothing stops a landlord acting faster, and the guidance expects interim steps to limit the damp or mould while anything is delayed. There is also no Scottish equivalent of England's duty to provide suitable alternative accommodation at no cost when a home cannot be made safe within the timescale.

Where a Scottish landlord genuinely cannot meet a deadline because of circumstances beyond its control, the period is suspended rather than breached. The landlord has to tell the tenant in writing that the period is suspended and why, give a reasonable revised timescale, and take reasonable steps in the meantime. England frames the same idea around what is reasonably practicable and around exhausting reasonable endeavours to get third-party consent.

Both laws count in working days, but against different calendars. England excludes Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday and bank holidays in England and Wales. Scotland excludes Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays in Scotland. The two bank holiday lists differ: 2 January and the first Monday in August are bank holidays in Scotland but not in England, while Easter Monday and the last Monday in August are bank holidays in England but not in Scotland. Christmas Day and Good Friday are excluded on both sides, by name in England and as Scottish bank holidays in Scotland.

Scotland is also explicit that the ten days begin with the day after the report. A report on Monday 12 October 2026 means the ten working days run from Tuesday 13 October and end on Monday 26 October.

The UKAME deadline calculator now has a Scotland setting. It applies the Scottish bank holiday calendar, drops the 24-hour emergency tier, and adds the 20 working-day completion date for social landlords alongside the investigation, summary and commencement deadlines.

England's Awaab's Law works by implying the requirements into every social tenancy as a term of the contract. A tenant enforces it the way they would enforce any other repairing obligation: through the landlord's complaints process, the Housing Ombudsman, and ultimately a claim in court for breach of contract. There is no fixed tariff of compensation in the regulations.

Scotland splits the remedies by sector. For social tenants the Right to Repair scheme pays set compensation when a deadline is missed and the period has not been suspended: £15, plus £3 for every working day until the duty is met, capped at £100 for each failure. The regulations attach that to a missed investigation and to a missed commencement, and the scheme's existing compensation rules apply to a missed completion. Small sums, but automatic.

For private tenants the route is the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber). The regulations require the tribunal, when deciding whether a landlord has met the Repairing Standard, to consider whether the investigation, summary and commencement duties were complied with. The tribunal can issue a Repairing Standard Enforcement Order, and failing to carry out the work in an order without reasonable excuse is a criminal offence. It can also issue a Rent Relief Order restricting the rent payable until the order is complied with, and it sends a failure-to-comply decision to the local authority, which can do the work and recover the cost from the landlord.

• ·The 10, 3 and 5 working-day skeleton. Investigate, summarise in writing, act. Anyone trained on the English timescales will recognise the shape.
• ·The written summary. Both nations require it within three working days of the investigation concluding. Scotland's guidance says it must name who investigated, set out the findings, state whether the house is substantially free from damp and mould, and either describe the work and the target start date or explain why no work is needed.
• ·A competent person. Both laws leave the judgement to the landlord's reasonable opinion rather than prescribing a qualification. Scotland's guidance lists surveying, housing maintenance, environmental health and property inspection backgrounds as the kind of experience it has in mind.
• ·The clock does not care who answered the phone. Both regimes start when the landlord becomes aware by any route, not only a formal report from the tenant. Scotland's guidance adds that a sensor reading on its own does not count as awareness.
• ·Access. Scotland's guidance says a landlord that has made reasonable attempts to get in will not be in breach if the tenant is unwilling or unable to allow entry, and may apply to the sheriff for a warrant. England's regulations imply a right of entry at reasonable times on 24 hours' written notice.

Because the Scottish law works by amending the Repairing Standard and the Right to Repair scheme, it inherits their boundaries. Occupancy arrangements that are not tenancies are outside it. Mobile homes are outside it, with residents of publicly provided Gypsy/Traveller sites covered by separate minimum site standards instead. Temporary accommodation gets its own annex in the guidance. During parliamentary scrutiny the Cabinet Secretary acknowledged that some tenancy types would fall outside the scope initially, with the intention of widening coverage over time.

Wales has taken a third route. Rather than new regulations, the Welsh Government updated the Welsh Housing Quality Standard so that from 1 April 2026 social landlords must investigate a hazard with an assessed likelihood of imminent harm within 24 hours and remedy it within a further 24 hours, and investigate other significant hazards within ten working days and remedy them within a further five. Compliance is monitored through quarterly returns rather than through the courts. Northern Ireland has no equivalent yet; the Department for Communities has been consulting on a Decent Homes Standard that it says would incorporate some of the protections.

1. 1.Scottish private landlords and agents need a process now. Every damp or mould report needs a logged date, a competent investigation inside ten working days, a written summary and a start date. The tribunal will ask for all four.
2. 2.Scottish social landlords need contractor capacity for a 20-day finish. Commencing within five days is the easy part. The Right to Repair completion period is the one that costs money when it slips.
3. 3.Cross-border organisations need two calendars and two rulebooks. A single English-calendar deadline tracker will miscount Scottish cases, and a Scottish process with no emergency tier will fall short of the English 24-hour duty.
4. 4.The investigation is where both laws are won or lost. Whoever attends has to be able to say whether the damp or mould is substantial (Scotland) or a significant hazard (England), identify the cause and specify the work. That judgement, and the record of it, is what every remedy on both sides of the border turns on.

• ·The Investigation and Commencement of Repair (Scotland) Regulations 2026, SSI 2026/173, made 24 March 2026, in force 6 October 2026.
• ·Awaab's Law: guidance for landlords in Scotland, Scottish Government.
• ·The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1042, in force 27 October 2025.
• ·Awaab's Law Phase 2: guidance for social landlords, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
• ·Dampness and mould in rented housing: what will Awaab's Law in Scotland do?, Scottish Parliament Information Centre, 19 March 2026.

This article describes the law as it stood on 7 October 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. Our Awaab's Law guide and Phase 2 explainer cover the English regulations in detail.