Private Tenant Rights: What to Do If Your Landlord Won’t Fix Damp

Awaab’s Law currently applies only to social housing (see our full explainer), but private renters in England already have separate legal protections that can be used to push a landlord to fix damp and mould.

Your landlord’s existing legal duties

• Fitness for human habitation: under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, private landlords have a legal duty to ensure a rented home is fit to live in throughout the tenancy, which can include serious damp and mould.
• Repairing obligations: under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, landlords are generally responsible for keeping the structure and exterior of the property in repair, which covers many of the underlying causes of penetrating and rising damp (a leaking roof, guttering, or a failed damp-proof course).
• Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS): local councils can assess a property against HHSRS and take enforcement action against a landlord if damp and mould is assessed as a serious (“Category 1”) hazard.

Steps to take

1. Report it in writing. Email or write to your landlord or letting agent describing the problem, when it started, and asking for it to be fixed. Keep a copy — a written record matters if you need to escalate.
2. Take dated photos of the damp or mould, and keep a note of when you reported it and any response you got.
3. Follow up in writing if there’s no response within a reasonable time, and consider sending a formal letter (Citizens Advice and Shelter both provide templates).
4. Contact your local council’s private housing/environmental health team if your landlord doesn’t act. Councils can inspect the property under HHSRS and issue formal notices requiring the landlord to carry out repairs.
5. Get advice from Shelter or Citizens Advice before withholding rent or taking more serious action — withholding rent without following the correct legal process can put your own tenancy at risk, so it’s worth getting advice on the right route first.

Where to get help

• Shelter England (england.shelter.org.uk) — free advice on repairs and damp specifically for renters.
• Citizens Advice (citizensadvice.org.uk) — general housing rights advice and letter templates.
• Your local council’s private sector housing/environmental health team — contact details are on your council’s website.