What is Awaab’s Council and why did we set it up?

In the months after Awaab's Law came into force, we noticed something.

The sector was talking a lot, about deadlines, timescales, legal exposure, and what the regulations technically required, with conferences being held and guidance being published while landlords wrote policies, retrained staff, and tried to work out what compliance actually looked like in practice.

Something was missing from most of those conversations though: the people who actually understood damp and mould, the tenants who had lived with it, and the specialists who had spent years diagnosing it properly, along with the honest, uncomfortable, practical discussion about why the same problems kept recurring despite years of attempted solutions.
That is why we set up Awaab's Council.

Where the idea came from
At Dwelling Doctors, we have been treating damp, condensation, and mould in homes across the UK for over 18 years, and in that time we have seen what happens when the underlying cause is never properly addressed. We have seen the same properties treated repeatedly with surface solutions that do not work, and we have seen tenants raise concerns that were not taken seriously until something went seriously wrong.

Awaab's Law was named after a two-year-old boy whose death was entirely preventable, and while the legislation that followed is important, legislation alone does not change behaviour, culture, or practice on the ground. What changes those things is people coming together, sharing what they know, being honest about what is not working, and leaving with something concrete they can actually do differently.

We wanted to create the space for that conversation to happen.

What Awaab's Council actually is
Awaab's Council is not a conference, a policy seminar, or a sales event dressed up as something else. It is a free, working forum, a day where housing professionals, legal experts, mould and ventilation specialists, and people with lived experience sit in the same room and have the kind of honest, practical conversation that the sector needs but rarely gets.

The format is deliberate, with places intentionally limited and the discussion kept focused, and the goal is always the same: to leave with clear, actionable insight that can be implemented immediately, not a folder of slides that sits on a shelf.

Our most recent session focused on prevention and cure, exploring how organisations can move beyond reactive responses to damp and mould complaints and build approaches that genuinely protect tenants and reduce long-term risk. The conversation was difficult at times, though it was also, we think, exactly the kind of conversation the sector needs to be having.

What we learned from the last session
A few things became clear very quickly.

The gap between policy and practice in social housing is significant. Many organisations have invested heavily in rewriting processes and training staff but are still struggling with the diagnostic rigour that Awaab's Law actually demands, and surface treatment remains far too common while root cause assessment remains far too rare.

Tenant voice is still not given enough weight in how organisations respond to damp and mould. Hearing directly from someone who has lived with the problem, who has reported it and been ignored, who has watched it affect their family's health, changes the conversation in a way that no amount of guidance documents can replicate.

There is also a genuine appetite in the sector for more of this, for honest, practical, peer-level discussion that goes beyond what any single organisation can figure out alone.

What comes next
We are now planning our next Awaab's Council event, and it promises to be our biggest yet.

On 4th November 2026 we will be bringing the forum to London for the first time, hosted at The Engine Rooms, 82-92 Great North Road, London, N2 0NL, and with Phase 2 of Awaab's Law coming into force on 30th November 2026, extending statutory obligations to seven new hazard categories including excess cold, electrical hazards, falls, fire, and pest infestations, the timing could not be more significant.

This next session will bring together an exceptional group of confirmed speakers including legal expertise, Housing Ombudsman insight, tenant voice, and frameworks specialists, all focused on what the expanded law means in practice and what housing providers need to do before November.

The event is free to attend, places are limited, and based on the response to our previous session, we expect them to go quickly.

Why this matters
Awaab Ishak was two years old, and his death was caused by mould in a home where his family had raised concerns repeatedly, over years, without effective action being taken.

Awaab's Council exists because we believe the sector can do better, because we believe that when the right people are in the right room having the right conversation, things actually change, and because we believe that every tenant living in a damp or mouldy home deserves to know that the organisations responsible for that home are taking it as seriously as the law now requires them to.

If that sounds like a conversation you want to be part of, we would love to see you at the next session.

Reserve your place at Awaab's Council here.

Article Author

Scott Evans

Scott Evans is the founder and CEO of Dwelling Doctors