Human Rights & Social Housing
This month, on 27 October 2025, Awaab’s Law will come into force in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The law is named after two-year old Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 due to prolonged exposure to mould in his home. This occurred despite Awaab’s parents making repeated complaints to their social landlord; however, no action was taken to treat the mould. The aim of Awaab’s law is to provide guidance to social housing landlords, including local authorities and private registered providers of social housing, in the application of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, and the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025. The regulations require that social housing landlords must take steps to address safety concerns in a timely manner and to a satisfactory standard. If social housing landlords fail to comply with Awaab’s law, tenants can take action against social housing landlords, including taking them to court where the court may order that the landlord provides necessary repairs, and or pays compensation to the tenants.
Awaab's law arrives against the backdrop of some big developments in the social housing sector over the last year. In September 2024, the final report of the six-year Grenfell Inquiry was released, highlighting potential failures on the part of the Government to act after being made aware of dangerous cladding used on the tower block that ultimately led to the death of 72 people after a fire in 2017. The report concluded that building safety management in England and Wales is “seriously defective”. The inquiry, and reports from other organisations such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) both raised that the failure of the government and public authorities to take reasonable steps to address safety concerns in Grenfell could be a violation of the right to life, protected by Article 2 of the Human Rights Act.
In May 2025, the Housing Ombudsman Service released a report highlighting the breakdown of trust between social housing landlords and tenants due to the general condition of social housing properties and the time it takes for repairs to be undertaken. The services reported stories such as how a child’s bedroom windows had been boarded up for over four years whilst they waited for a replacement, collapsed ceilings, and autistic people and people with mobility issues having continuing mould and damp issues. In a separate report, the Housing Ombudsman Service recommended a “human-centric approach to service delivery”, including social landlords implementing a strategy that is in line with the Human Rights Act as a way to balance the relationship between landlords and tenants. In the summary for the report, they acknowledge that a decent home with fair and reasonable services “can be a human right” and the role in upholding this is “not discretionary for social landlords, it should be core.”
What we are seeing at the centre of these issues are failures of public authorities to consider their legal duties under the Human Rights Act 1998. All public authorities, including local councils, social housing associations and landlords, have a legal duty to uphold our human rights across all their actions, decisions and policies. Whilst we do not have a specific right to housing in the Human Rights Act , we do have human rights that protect us when accessing social housing. We have rights which protect our physical and mental wellbeing, our enjoyment of our home, to be treated fairly, and to enjoy our possessions. Adopting a human rights-based approach in the provision of social housing could prevent placing the physical and mental wellbeing of social housing tenants at risk.
When someone’s health and wellbeing is affected because a local authority hasn’t addressed mould or damp, that could place the right to private and family life, home and correspondence (Article 8, HRA) at risk. When a social housing landlord fails to provide reasonable adjustments so a tenant with limited mobility can access basic amenities, their right to be free from discrimination could be at risk (Article 14, HRA). If a landlord’s complaint process is not written or enforced adequately, it could pose a risk to the right to a fair trial (Article 6, HRA). These protections are not optional or simply nice to have, they are protected by law, and their protection by public authorities is required.
However, the Human Rights Act isn’t just a set of rules for public authorities, it also a tool to support decision making, policy, practice and advocacy. The HRA provides a framework that public authorities can use to consider whether their actions are rights respecting. Similarly, the HRA can be used to empower tenants to challenge situations where their rights aren’t being respected. It is a legal framework that they can use when raising issues with public authorities to get accountability and to secure positive change.
Human rights matter to everyone, wherever they are. If people are to enjoy their human rights in their everyday lives, it is essential that we start at the most foundational part of our lives – the home.
In 2026, we will be delivering two open courses on housing and human rights, one to public services, and another to charities in the housing sector across the UK. The first course will support public services to understand their human rights legal duties to enable them to provide housing services in a rights-respecting way. The second course will provide charities with practical human rights information so they can support people in social housing to understand and use their human rights. If you are interested in learning more, we will be running a free online housing and human rights taster session on 20th November 2025.
Register for our free human rights in housing taster session Register your interest for our 2026 open course: Human Rights in Social Housing for Public Bodies Register your interest for our 2026 open course: Human Rights in Social Housing for Charities and Third-Sector Professionals
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