Awaab's Law and Overheating: How Sensa Protect Helps Social Landlords Meet the 2026 Duty

In October 2025, Awaab's Law came into force across England's social rented sector. From 2026, its scope expands significantly — and excess heat in the home becomes a statutory hazard that social landlords must investigate and remediate within strict, legally enforceable timeframes.

For housing associations, local authorities and arms-length management organisations, that creates an immediate operational question: how do you quickly and cost-effectively reduce overheating in dwellings already in your portfolio — particularly top-floor flats, south- and west-facing properties, and homes occupied by vulnerable tenants?

At Sensaglass, we believe the answer for many properties is straightforward. Our Sensa Protect nano ceramic heat reduction film is a retrofit window film that can be installed in hours, with no decant, no construction work and no disruption to tenants. It delivers measurable thermal performance improvements that map directly onto Awaab's Law remediation requirements — and saves money for both the landlord and the tenant year-round.

The New Statutory Duty

Awaab's Law is named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 from prolonged exposure to mould in his social housing home. The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025 imply new terms into every social tenancy agreement, requiring landlords to:

Investigate significant hazards within 10 working days of being reported
Make safe within a further 5 working days
Resolve emergency hazards within 24 hours
Provide alternative accommodation at the landlord's expense if a property cannot be made safe in time
Phase 1, in force since October 2025, focuses on damp, mould and emergency hazards. Phase 2, rolling out in 2026, brings excess heat (HHSRS Hazard 3) into scope, alongside excess cold, fire, electrical safety, falls and hygiene. Phase 3 in 2027 extends the regime to all remaining HHSRS hazards apart from overcrowding.

Non-compliance carries serious consequences: unlimited fines from the Regulator of Social Housing, Housing Ombudsman investigations, tenant claims through the courts for breach of tenancy, and significant reputational risk.

Why Overheating Is a Real Problem

Excess heat is recognised by the Housing Health and Safety Rating System as a Category 1 hazard with serious health risks — particularly for elderly residents, infants, and people with respiratory or cardiovascular conditions. The dwelling factors most commonly cited are solar heat gain through glazing, poor ventilation and inadequate thermal control. Properties most at risk include:

Top-floor and converted attic flats
Dwellings with large south- and west-facing glazing
Retrofitted homes where improved insulation and airtightness have, paradoxically, increased internal overheating risk
Buildings in urban heat island areas
Conventional remediation options — external shading, secondary glazing, replacement glazing, mechanical cooling — are expensive, slow, intrusive, and frequently require planning consent or tenant decant. Few fit comfortably inside Awaab's Law statutory timeframes.

A Quick, Non-Intrusive Solution

Sensa Protect is a nano ceramic solar heat reduction film applied to the interior face of existing glazing. The technology blocks a high percentage of solar heat and UV radiation while preserving natural light and external views — so tenants notice the comfort improvement without losing daylight in the home.

For social housing landlords, the operational advantages are significant:

Same-day installation on most properties. A typical flat is completed in a few hours.
No decant required. Tenants remain in their home; the work is clean and disruption-free.
No planning permission. The film is internal and fully reversible.
No structural change. No impact on building fabric, glazing units or window warranties.
Long service life backed by manufacturer warranty.
This profile makes Sensa Protect particularly well suited to the Awaab's Law remediation window: an effective intervention that can be specified, scheduled and completed inside the statutory timeframe — avoiding both the compliance risk of running over time and the cost of temporary accommodation.

Year-Round Performance, Not Just a Summer Fix

Sensa Protect delivers benefits in every season:

Summer. Significant reduction in solar heat gain through the glass, lowering peak indoor temperatures, reducing the risk of overheating-related health incidents, and cutting any cooling load on fans or mechanical air conditioning. Tenants are more comfortable, and the property is demonstrably moved away from the HHSRS excess heat threshold.

Winter. The film's low-emissivity properties reflect internal radiant heat back into the room, reducing heat loss through the glazing. Glass is typically the weakest thermal element in a dwelling's envelope; addressing it lowers heating demand, helps mitigate fuel poverty, and contributes directly to net-zero retrofit and Decent Homes objectives.

This dual-season performance means a single intervention delivers value against multiple landlord priorities at once: Awaab's Law compliance, the updated Decent Homes Standard, SHDF and decarbonisation funding outcomes, tenant fuel costs, and ESG reporting.

A Sensible First Move for 2026 Readiness

With Phase 2 arriving in 2026, the time to scope overheating risk in your portfolio is now. The properties that will trigger Awaab's Law excess heat complaints are largely predictable — orientation, top-floor location, glazing type and tenant vulnerability profile are all visible from existing stock condition data. Acting proactively is significantly cheaper, and significantly less risky, than waiting for a tenant complaint to start the statutory clock.

Working With Sensaglass

We work directly with housing associations, local authorities, asset managers and retrofit consultants. Our service includes:

Site survey and overheating risk assessment
Specification matched to property orientation, glazing type and tenant vulnerability
Installation by trained operatives
Full documentation pack for compliance records and audit trail
If you are scoping your Phase 2 readiness for 2026, or responding to active overheating complaints in your portfolio, we'd welcome a conversation about how Sensa Protect can fit into your remediation strategy.

Contact Sensaglass — London
Tel: 00447487518889 / email: [email protected]