By Matt Jarratt, Operations Lead at Procure Plus
Damp & Mould Action and Awareness Week is a chance to look at how approaches to health hazards are evolving, particularly as Awaab’s Law Phase 2 introduces further requirements and timescales from 30 November 2026.
Awaab’s Law exists so that what happened to Awaab Ishak is never repeated: once a hazard is identified, it must be dealt with promptly and properly. Landlords have reworked their processes to meet the statutory timescales. The sector’s next challenge is making sure speedy responses and lasting solutions go hand in hand.
Smarter triage and faster intervention with technology
Since Phase 1 came into effect, landlords have looked at how to build processes that trigger action as soon as a hazard is identified. That has meant more technology to spot issues and assess severity. Video and software can support faster, more effective triage, showing which cases need urgent attention and where to focus resources.
Emerging technologies can also reduce immediate risk while remedial work is arranged, by treating visible surface mould and the airborne spores that can’t be seen. They don’t address the underlying cause, but they quickly give residents a temporary layer of protection and make the space safer for the contractors who enter and treat it.
Welcome as this progress is, we must find and fix root causes, not just react to symptoms. With new legal requirements and rising expectations, there’s a risk that the focus becomes making a space safe as quickly as possible without understanding why the problem occurred or how to stop it returning.
Make homes work for the people who live in them
Cleaning mould-affected surfaces or using new technology to make a space safe can provide valuable breathing space, but it must be followed by a permanent solution.
Fixing the causes starts with understanding how people live in their homes. Solutions should reflect how homes are actually used, rather than expecting residents to change normal behaviours to accommodate a property’s limitations.
People spend more time at home than they once did, so rooms are occupied for longer. Everyday activities like drying clothes indoors in colder months generate significant moisture, while high energy costs, set to increase from January 2027, can make it hard for households to heat their homes sufficiently. Residents should be able to use their homes in reasonable ways. The challenge for landlords is to design solutions around how homes are used today, not expect people to live around the solutions.
Many older properties weren’t built to modern airtightness standards and rely on natural air exchange. Retrofit programmes aim to make homes airtight and warmer, but moisture can become trapped if insulation and airtightness improve without adequate ventilation.
Retrofit and damp and mould prevention therefore need to be considered together: a well-insulated, energy-efficient home needs effective ventilation and moisture management. We need to understand the building as a whole and not treat issues in isolation.
Spotting the signs before problems emerge
Technology can play a bigger role in moving the sector towards prevention, and many organisations are experimenting with AI, but it isn’t yet routinely embedded in ways of working.
One longer-term opportunity is analysing damp and mould data across large numbers of properties to find patterns that might otherwise be missed. If several homes on the same street repeatedly experience similar problems, that could point to a shared design or ventilation issue. Rather than waiting for residents to report problems, landlords could use AI to identify properties needing investigation or investment before issues become serious and widespread, and to show where planned investment could prevent future cases.
There’s work to do first. Organisations need quality data, captured consistently and categorised appropriately, before AI can offer meaningful insight. The goal is for AI agents to analyse data continuously and raise emerging issues, rather than being asked to analyse it manually after the event.
Turning insight into action
For Procure Plus, the shift from reactive to proactive working is already reflected in the support we provide to clients. We work with landlords to understand the issues they are seeing across their housing stock, identify where patterns and recurring problems may indicate a wider issue, and help them put the right solutions in place.
That can mean looking beyond the immediate repair to consider the condition of the property, ventilation, insulation and how the home is being used. It can also mean using data and insight from repairs and maintenance activity to inform investment decisions, helping clients target resources where they can have the greatest long-term impact.
The aim isn’t simply to help landlords respond to Awaab’s Law. It’s to help them build approaches that reduce the likelihood of problems arising in the first place, while delivering homes that are healthier, more comfortable and more resilient for residents.