Damp & mould: who's responsible?
Damp is the single most-argued issue between renters and landlords — and since Awaab's Law, a landlord can no longer wave it away as "lifestyle". The trouble is that "damp" covers four different problems with four different fixes, and they don't all fall to the same person. Tell us what you're seeing and we'll explain the likely cause, who's usually responsible, the legal duty behind it, and what to do next. Free, no sign-up.
General guidance to help you spot the cause and know your rights — not legal advice, and not a survey. The landlord's core repairing duties (the structure and exterior, and the installations for heating, water, gas and electrics) can't be signed away in a tenancy. For a serious hazard, your council's environmental-health team can act under the HHSRS. Nothing you pick leaves your browser.
Four kinds of damp — and they don't all fall to the same person.
Condensation & black mould is the common one: warm, moist indoor air hitting cold surfaces, worst in cold, poorly-ventilated rooms. Day-to-day ventilation and heating are the tenant's part — but if there's no working extractor fan, the windows have no vents, or the walls are cold-bridged or poorly insulated, that's a building fault and the landlord's. Crucially, persistent mould is a health hazard the landlord must act on either way; "tenant lifestyle" no longer discharges the duty.
Penetrating damp is water getting in through the structure — a roof or gutter fault, cracked render or pointing, a failed seal, a leaking chimney. A defined patch that darkens after rain. That's a structural defect, and the landlord's to fix.
Rising damp is ground moisture coming up through a wall because the damp-proof course has failed or been bridged — a tide-mark up to about a metre, sometimes with blown plaster or salts. Also structural, also the landlord's (though genuine rising damp is rarer than people think, so it should be properly diagnosed).
A leak — under a bathroom, around a pipe or radiator, under the boiler — is the landlord's installation under the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985 s.11, unless you clearly caused it. Stop the water and report it as urgent; water damage escalates fast.
The legal backstop. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 means your home must be free from serious damp & mould; the HHSRS lets your council order a landlord to remedy a hazard; and Awaab's Law sets binding timescales to investigate and fix damp & mould — in force for social landlords from October 2025, with extension to the private rented sector provided for by the Renters' Rights Act and being brought in by later regulations. Whatever the cause, keep dated photos and a written record of when you reported it.
Damp disputes come down to evidence.
Stead keeps a dated record of what you reported and when, holds your photos and documents in one place, and the app's "Report a repair" builder quotes your landlord's repairing duties for you — so if it isn't sorted, you've got the paper trail to push it.