6th October 2026
Private landlords in Scotland have just acquired another responsibility.
From 6 October 2026, new rules mean landlords must investigate reports of damp and mould within set timescales and, where necessary, start remedial work.
The changes apply to both social and private rented housing and are known as Awaab's Law, named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died in England in 2020 following prolonged exposure to mould in his home.
For tenants, the new rules should provide greater protection.
For landlords, they introduce another legal obligation that cannot simply be put on the list of jobs to get round to when convenient.
But there is a more complicated question underneath all this.
What happens when the mould is caused by the building itself?
The clock starts when the landlord knows about it
The new Scottish regulations set out a timetable.
Once a landlord becomes aware of damp or mould, a competent person must investigate within 10 working days.
Once the investigation is complete, the landlord must provide the tenant with a written summary of the findings within three working days.
If substantial damp or mould is identified, repair work must then begin within five working days of the investigation being completed.
For private landlords, the work must be completed as soon as reasonably practicable. Social landlords have a maximum 20-working-day completion period under the regulations.
That is quite a change from the rather vague system of:
"We'll get somebody to have a look when we can."
There is now a timetable.
Cleaning the mould may not be enough
This is perhaps the most important part of the new rules.
The objective is not simply to make the black marks disappear.
Where substantial damp or mould is identified, the work must make the home substantially free from damp and mould and, as far as reasonably practicable, put preventative measures in place to stop it returning.
That could mean treating the mould.
But it could also mean fixing the cause.
Perhaps there is a leaking roof.
Perhaps water is penetrating through an external wall.
Perhaps a gutter is defective.
Perhaps a window is allowing water into the building.
Perhaps the bathroom ventilation is inadequate.
Perhaps the property has poor insulation and suffers from persistent condensation.
In those circumstances, simply cleaning the mould could amount to treating the symptom rather than the problem.
And this is where things could become expensive
Imagine a tenant reports mould around a bedroom window.
The landlord sends somebody to clean it.
Three months later the mould is back.
The tenant reports it again.
The landlord cleans it again.
Under the new approach, the more important question becomes:
Why does it keep coming back?
The landlord may need to investigate whether the building has a defect or whether heating, ventilation or insulation is contributing to the problem.
That could turn a £100 cleaning job into a much more expensive repair.
A leaking roof could require hundreds or thousands of pounds.
Poor ventilation could require a new extractor system.
Condensation caused by inadequate insulation could eventually lead to insulation or window improvements.
And that raises the obvious question for landlords:
Who pays?
The answer is generally the landlord
Where the damp or mould is connected to the building or a repair for which the landlord is responsible, the new duties apply.
The Scottish Government guidance specifically says the regulations apply where the damp or mould is part of the building for which the landlord is responsible and the repair is the landlord's responsibility.
That is important because not every damp problem will automatically be the landlord's fault.
A landlord is not being told to guarantee that no condensation will ever appear in a property.
The investigation is intended to establish what is actually happening.
And the guidance recognises that every case of damp and mould is different.
What about the tenant?
This is where the debate could become rather more interesting.
Condensation can be affected by how a property is heated and ventilated.
Tenants can contribute to condensation by drying large quantities of washing indoors, not using ventilation or keeping the property extremely cold.
But landlords cannot simply assume that every case of mould is caused by the tenant's lifestyle.
The condition of the property has to be considered.
If a bathroom has inadequate ventilation, for example, repeatedly telling the tenant to open a window may not solve the underlying problem.
Similarly, if a property is poorly insulated and becomes very cold, condensation may be much more likely.
The new system therefore puts greater emphasis on investigation rather than assumption.
Older properties could be the difficult cases
This could be particularly relevant in parts of the Highlands and Caithness.
There are plenty of older properties with solid walls, older windows, limited insulation and sometimes complicated construction.
Some houses were never designed around modern expectations of heating and ventilation.
An old stone house can behave very differently from a modern, highly insulated property.
The landlord may therefore face a difficult choice.
Spend money improving the building.
Or risk repeatedly dealing with the consequences.
And with heating costs still a concern for many tenants, there is another complication.
A property can be perfectly habitable in summer but much more difficult to keep warm and dry during a northern Scottish winter.
Landlords will need better records
There is another practical consequence that may not be immediately obvious.
Landlords should keep records of what happens after a tenant reports damp or mould.
That includes the date the problem was reported, when an inspection was arranged, who carried it out, what was found, what repairs were recommended and when work started.
The Scottish Government guidance specifically recommends clear record keeping because landlords may need to demonstrate that they complied with the statutory duties or explain why they could not meet a deadline because of circumstances beyond their control.
For a landlord managing several properties, this means damp and mould complaints increasingly need to be treated as formal maintenance issues rather than informal conversations.
There are exceptions
The regulations recognise that landlords cannot always control everything.
The Scottish Government gives examples including severe weather or travel problems, illness or bereavement, unexpected contractor or supply-chain problems and situations where a landlord cannot gain access despite reasonable attempts.
That is particularly relevant in rural Scotland.
If a specialist contractor is unavailable locally and the nearest suitable contractor is hundreds of miles away, a landlord may have a legitimate problem meeting a statutory timescale.
But that does not mean the landlord can simply ignore the problem.
The guidance says landlords should document the circumstances and the steps they have taken.
What if the landlord does nothing?
The existing Scottish Repairing Standard remains important.
Private landlords have a legal obligation to ensure rented properties meet the required minimum physical standard.
If a problem is not resolved after the landlord has been notified, or there is disagreement about whether there is a problem, a tenant can take the matter to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber).
The new damp and mould rules therefore give tenants another important point of reference.
They can ask:
When was the problem reported?
When was it investigated?
What did the investigation find?
When did repairs begin?
Those are much more precise questions than simply asking whether the landlord has "done something".
But there is another side to the story
There are many responsible landlords who already deal with damp and mould quickly.
For them, the new rules may simply formalise what they already do.
But there are also small landlords who own one or two properties and may not have large amounts of money available for unexpected building repairs.
A £5,000 roof repair or £10,000 insulation and ventilation project can look very different to a private landlord with one property than it does to a large housing association.
The landlord may have a mortgage.
The property may already have a relatively modest rent.
Insurance may not cover the problem.
And the tenant still needs a safe home.
That is where the economics become difficult.
Could the rules put up rents?
That is one of the questions worth asking.
If landlords face higher maintenance and compliance costs, some of those costs may eventually feed into rents.
Others may decide that maintaining older properties for rent is becoming too complicated and sell instead.
That could reduce the supply of private rented accommodation.
But there is another possibility.
Better-maintained properties may have lower long-term repair costs, fewer disputes and healthier tenants.
It is therefore too early to say that the new rules will necessarily push rents higher.
What is clear is that the cost of maintaining rented housing has become a more important part of the landlord's business calculation.
The real test will be older housing
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be properties where there is no simple answer.
Consider an old stone house with solid walls.
The tenant complains of mould.
The landlord cleans it.
It returns.
A specialist finds that cold internal surfaces are encouraging condensation.
The solution might involve insulation, improved ventilation, better heating or some combination of the three.
But each solution costs money.
And some improvements can themselves cause problems if they are carried out incorrectly on older buildings.
That is why the new regulations' emphasis on investigation is important.
The answer to mould is not always a tin of mould remover.
Sometimes it is a building survey.
Tenants also have a responsibility
The new rules should not be interpreted as meaning that tenants have no responsibilities.
Tenants should report damp and mould promptly.
They should allow reasonable access for inspection and repairs.
They should use ventilation and heating systems properly where possible.
They should report leaks and other problems rather than allowing them to become worse.
The important change is that responsibility should be based on evidence about the cause, rather than automatically blaming either the tenant or the landlord.
A potentially expensive winter
The timing is interesting.
These rules have arrived just as Scotland heads into another winter.
Cold weather, condensation and heating costs are likely to make damp and mould a particularly important issue over the coming months.
For landlords, the sensible approach is probably to know exactly what properties they own, understand their vulnerabilities and have a plan for responding to complaints.
For tenants, it is worth knowing that reporting a damp or mould problem is no longer simply a request for the landlord to "have a look sometime".
There are now statutory timescales.
The bigger question
There is a good principle behind the new rules.
Nobody should have to live in a home where serious damp and mould is allowed to persist indefinitely.
But there is also a practical question that needs answering.
What happens when making an old building genuinely dry and healthy costs far more than the landlord expected?
The answer cannot simply be to clean the mould and hope for the best.
Nor can every small landlord necessarily absorb unlimited building costs.
And if the cost of bringing older private rented properties up to modern standards becomes too high, some landlords may decide to sell.
That could create another problem: fewer properties available to rent.
So Scotland may have to find a balance between protecting tenants, maintaining the private rented housing stock and ensuring that small landlords can actually afford to keep their properties in good condition.
The new rules are a significant step.
But the really difficult question may be only beginning:
If the problem is the building rather than the tenant, how much should it cost to put it right, and who ultimately pays?