Housing associations, Awaab's Law and hot water safety in London homes

Awaab's Law came into force for social landlords in England on 27 October 2025. It's named after Awaab Ishak, the two-year-old who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to mould in his family's housing association flat in Rochdale. It's a significant change for anyone managing social housing, and there's been a lot of talk about what it means. Some of that talk has run a bit ahead of the facts, so here's a careful look at where hot water safety and TMVs actually fit.

What Awaab's Law is

The law comes from the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, and the detail is in the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025. It applies to social landlords, meaning housing associations and councils with their own stock, and it sets legal timescales for investigating and fixing certain hazards in tenants' homes. Those requirements become terms of the tenancy, so tenants can hold their landlord to them.

It's being brought in in phases. The first phase, from 27 October 2025, covers:

• Damp and mould hazards that present a significant risk of harm to the tenant's health or safety.
• Emergency hazards, which landlords must investigate and make safe within 24 hours. This applies to hazards across the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) where there's an imminent and significant risk of harm.

The government has said more HHSRS hazards will be added in later phases during 2026 and 2027. The exact scope and timing are set out in government guidance, which is the place to check.

So does it cover hot water and scalding?

Not as a headline item, at least not yet. Scalding from hot water falls under the HHSRS hazard for burns and scalds, and that isn't one of the hazards specifically brought in by the first phase. It would only be caught right now if a particular situation was serious enough to count as an emergency hazard, such as hot water reaching an outlet at a dangerous temperature in the home of a resident who's at real risk.

So please don't take this as "Awaab's Law means every TMV must be serviced by Friday." It doesn't say that. But it would also be a mistake to think hot water safety is off the hook.

Why hot water safety still matters to social landlords

• The existing duties haven't gone anywhere. Health and safety law, ACOP L8 and HSG274 still require Legionella risk to be controlled, and that means hot water hot enough to scald unless something mixes it down at the outlet.
• The consumer standards apply. Since April 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing's consumer standards, including the Safety and Quality Standard, expect landlords to meet their health and safety obligations and to have accurate data about their homes.
• Many residents are vulnerable to scalding. Sheltered housing, extra-care and supported living schemes often have TMVs on every outlet for good reason.
• Phases are still to come. If further hazards are added in 2026 and 2027, landlords with good records and a working programme will be in a much better place than those starting from scratch.

The real lesson: know your homes

One theme runs through Awaab's Law, the consumer standards and the Regulator's focus on data. Landlords are expected to know what's in their homes and what condition it's in. For TMVs, that's surprisingly hard. Valves get fitted during adaptations, refurbishments and new-build handovers, and the records don't always follow.

A useful programme for a London housing provider would include:

1. A register of every TMV across the stock: which home, which room, what it serves, make, approval and condition. Our asset registers are designed for portfolios.
2. Priority for the most vulnerable residents, such as sheltered, extra-care and adapted homes.
3. A service interval set by the evidence, using the HTM 04-01 approach, with London's hard water in mind.
4. A clear route for reports. If a resident says their bath "comes out scalding", repairs staff should know that's a safety call, not a routine plumbing job.
5. No-access tracking, with return visits rather than "card left, job closed".

A typical scenario

Imagine a housing association with a few thousand homes across Newham, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham and Southwark, including several sheltered schemes. The compliance team has good gas and electrical data but only partial TMV records, mostly from the sheltered schemes. A practical way in would be to start with those schemes, survey and service every valve, then work outward through adapted homes and recent new-build blocks, building the register as we go. Each block gets resident letters, booked visits and a no-access list, and the association ends up with TMV data it can stand behind.

Working across London's social housing

Some of the biggest concentrations of social housing in the capital are in East London and South London, though we cover every borough. We plan estate programmes block by block, with resident letters and booked return visits. If you need help with the practical side of getting into homes, see our post on planning around parking and access. For supported housing with care, our care homes and TMV3 post may help too.

The short version

Awaab's Law's first phase is about damp, mould and emergency hazards. It doesn't specifically cover routine TMV servicing, and nobody should claim it does. But your other duties still apply, more hazards are on the way and the direction of travel is clear: know your homes, keep records and fix things quickly. A proper TMV register and service programme does exactly that for hot water.

See our TMV compliance guide for the wider regulatory picture, or TMV servicing for what each visit involves.