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Case study 06 · Public sector · Housing
Damp and mould tracker.
A council damp and mould service where every Awaab's Law deadline is impossible to miss.
Case study 06 · Public sector · Housing
A council damp and mould service where every Awaab's Law deadline is impossible to miss.
Awaab's Law came into force for social landlords in England on 27 October 2025. It is named after Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old who died after long exposure to mould in his family's flat. It puts fixed deadlines on councils and housing associations: emergencies investigated and made safe within 24 hours, other damp and mould investigated within 10 working days, a written summary to the tenant within 3 working days of that, and the home made safe within 5.
In many councils a report still starts as a phone call typed into a repairs system as a general job. Nobody records who lives there, the surveyor turns up without photos, deadlines sit in a spreadsheet, and the same building generates report after report without anyone joining the dots.
So the brief: one service from the tenant's report to the home being safe, where the law's clocks run on their own and people make the judgement calls.
The law counts from when the landlord becomes aware, not when someone gets round to triage. So every clock starts the moment a tenant presses send, and the queue is sorted by the nearest legal deadline across every stage.
The report asks about babies, pregnancy, breathing conditions and age, because the guidance says vulnerability can make a hazard more serious. Widespread mould with a vulnerable person, water near electrics or a sagging ceiling are suggested as emergencies.
The service suggests a category with its reasons. An officer confirms it and a surveyor confirms the hazard on site. The timeline records whether the suggestion was accepted, so the rules can be tuned against real decisions.
If a surveyor puts the cause down to household activity alone, the service stops them with the guidance: find the cause first, and check ventilation, heating and the building before blaming how a family lives.
Failed visits are logged with what was tried, which is the evidence a landlord needs for a reasonable endeavours defence. If safety work won't finish in time, offering alternative accommodation is one click and goes on the record.
A hotspot view counts reports by building. Five reports from Kestrel House in six weeks, with causes like failed insulation and cold bridging, points to a whole-block survey instead of repairing flat by flat.
Each case shows the household, the tenant's photos and description, the triage suggestion and the surveyor's findings. Down the side, every legal deadline for that case is laid out with what's done and what's next.
When the surveyor records findings, the written summary letter is drafted from them, so the 3-day duty is a review and a send, not a blank page.
This is a concept on synthetic cases, so these are targets, not results.
I designed and built this, and made the product calls: when the clocks start, what counts as a possible emergency, what only a surveyor can decide, and where the service should push back on blaming tenants. I based the deadlines on the published Awaab's Law guidance for social landlords.
It's a concept: Westmere Borough Council, the tenants, the buildings and every case are made up, and no texts or letters are sent.
"When the law sets the deadline, the product's job is to make missing it hard, and to make sure the family is never the first thing blamed."