The Ministry of Housing has published non-statutory guidance for social landlords implementing Awaab’s Law, to support them in identifying ‘significant’ and ’emergency’ property hazards.
The guidance clarifies that a notional, but objective “reasonable landlord test” should be applied by landlords themselves to define what constitutes acceptable responses to ‘significant’ and ‘emergency’ hazards. The Ministry of Housing clarified that it would be asked in event of a case, “would a reasonable landlord make the hazard safe in 24 hours (for an emergency hazard) or 15 working days (for a significant hazard)? This is an objective test of what a notional ‘reasonable landlord’ would do which the courts can hold landlords to account for.”
The guidance continues: “Landlords should consider the specifics of the case, including the tenants’ circumstances, the severity of the hazard and the scale of works required, but they should focus on what a notional ‘reasonable landlord’ would do, rather than factoring in their own considerations (for example, budget or staff availability).”
Landlords will therefore need to factor in the tenants’ circumstances, including the age and physical and mental health of the tenants, as well as what they know about the condition of the home and the nature of the hazard, to assess the likelihood of harm materialising and the potential severity of that harm in the specific circumstances. A tenant does not necessarily have to have a specific vulnerability for a hazard to be deemed a significant hazard: some hazards can pose a danger to anyone.
Landlords “must also consider whether a reasonable landlord would be able to make the hazard safe within 15 working days or 24 hours, and should particularly consider where a reasonable landlord would use temporary measures to make a hazard safe.” (The guidance gave the example of cleaning mould and providing a dehumidifier while scheduling wider works to prevent mould coming back, providing temporary heaters while fixing a boiler, or restricting access to an area that was potentially unsafe while a falls or structural collapse hazard was dealt with). “These would all be measures a reasonable landlord would use to make something safe if a tenant was at risk of significant harm.”
The Ministry noted:
“This does not affect wider requirements under Awaab’s Law, and landlords will still need to take action to stop the hazard recurring to Awaab’s Law timescales once they have determined an issue is in scope.”
The Ministry confirmed that large cladding panel systems would be outside of the scope of Awaab’s Law:
“Some issues might only be able to be made safe through large-scale structural work, such as issues with large panel systems. As a reasonable landlord would not be able to make that safe within 15 days this would mean that they would fall out of scope of Awaab’s Law. Such issues will instead need to be addressed through other mechanisms in line with relevant legislation: the safety of tenants must remain paramount.”
The Ministry of Housing commented that this guidance did not replace existing guidance: “This document should be read alongside the previously-published Awaab’s Law guidance for landlords on the timeframes for repairs, to help them understand and navigate their responsibilities.”
Despite the new non-statutory nature of the guidance, landlords “should continue to exercise professional judgement, with reference to relevant legislation, regulatory standards and their own internal processes, governance and oversight arrangements.”