Mould in a Rented Home, Newham: Who Is Responsible for Removing It

Last updated 19 September 2026. Legal points checked against gov.uk on 19 September 2026; this page is not legal advice.

If the mould is coming from a building fault, damp penetrating a wall, a leak, condensation caused by poor ventilation or insulation, it is the landlord's job to fix it, not the tenant's job to keep painting over it. A tenant is only responsible for genuinely everyday things, like wiping condensation off a cold window or opening a bathroom window after a shower. This page sets out what the rules actually say for private tenants, housing association tenants and council tenants across Newham, including E6, E7, E12, E13, E15, E16 and E20, what to do about it in order, and when it is worth bringing in a professional to find the cause rather than treat what is on the wall.

Private tenants

If you rent privately in Newham, your landlord has to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair, along with the installations for water, gas, electricity, heating and sanitation, under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 goes further and lets a tenant take a landlord to court directly if the home is not fit to live in, which damp and mould can fall under. Neither Act sets Awaab's Law's fixed hours-and-days deadlines, that law does not currently cover the private rented sector, so a private landlord is not on a legal 24-hour or 10-working-day clock. What a private tenant does have is the right to expect action within a reasonable time, and a written record of what you reported and when is what makes "reasonable" arguable if it drags on. Read the actual wording of both Acts on legislation.gov.uk before relying on either in a dispute, this page is not legal advice.

Housing association and council tenants: Awaab's Law

If you rent from a housing association or a council, both count as a "social landlord" and Awaab's Law applies to you directly. Under gov.uk's guidance for tenants in social housing, the deadlines since Awaab's Law came into force on 27 October 2025 are: an emergency hazard, including a major leak, must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours; a significant damp or mould hazard must be investigated within 10 working days of you reporting it, and made safe within 5 working days of that investigation. If your landlord cannot make the home safe in that time, they must offer you somewhere else suitable to stay until it is done. Phase 2, due 30 November 2026, widens the same approach to other hazards like excess cold and falls, it does not change the damp and mould timescales already in force. This is gov.uk's published guidance, not our interpretation, and it is worth reading in full before quoting it back to a landlord.

What to do, in order

1. Report it in writing. A phone call is fine to start, but follow it up by text, email or the landlord's repair portal so there is a date-stamped record. Verbal-only reports are the easiest thing for a landlord to lose track of and the hardest for you to prove later.
2. Photograph it, with the date visible or noted. Wide shots of the room and close-ups of the affected wall or ceiling, repeated every few weeks if it is spreading. A single photo from month one is weaker evidence than a short dated series.
3. Keep a simple log. Date reported, what was said, who you spoke to, what happened next. Three lines in a notes app is enough.
4. Chase in writing if the deadline passes, referencing Awaab's Law directly if you are a social tenant, or referencing the earlier report if you are a private tenant.
5. Get a professional inspection if it comes back, or if the landlord's response is a repaint rather than a diagnosis. This is the point most disputes actually turn on.

Painting over mould without finding the cause is why it comes back in a few months. A leak behind a wall, a broken seal on a flat roof, penetrating damp through old pointing, or ventilation that cannot keep up with how a home is used, all look similar on the surface and need different fixes. A proper inspection finds which one it actually is, so the money spent on treatment is spent once.

What a Comprehensive Damp & Mould Survey covers

Our Comprehensive Damp & Mould Survey is £450 and gives you a document you can hand to a landlord, a housing officer, a letting agent or a solicitor, not just a verbal opinion. It includes:

• Room-by-room calibrated moisture readings across affected walls, ceilings and skirting, so the extent of the problem is measured, not guessed
• Air, humidity and temperature readings where they help show how a room is ventilating, plus thermal imaging where it helps trace where moisture is moving through a wall or floor
• A confirmed root cause, stated plainly, not a list of possibilities
• Prioritised recommendations for treatment
• A written, insurance-ready report with a photographic appendix

Where a survey finds the cause needs specialist work outside mould treatment itself, such as damp proofing, that is scoped and arranged as its own job once the diagnosis is confirmed, not bundled in blind. Once the cause is known, mould treatment starts from £300. If you would rather not book a full survey first, you can send us a video of the affected room and we will give you a fixed-price quote from that.

Newham: E6, E7, E12, E13, E15, E16, E20

Newham's housing is a genuine mix: Victorian and Edwardian terraces split into flats around East Ham and Upton Park (E6, E12, E13), post-war and ex-council estates through Plaistow and Canning Town (E13, E16), and newer build around Stratford and the Olympic Park (E15, E20). A large share of homes across the borough are privately rented, alongside a significant amount of housing association and council stock, so the "who is responsible" question comes up constantly between tenants, landlords and managing agents who each assume it is someone else's job. An ex-local authority flat with a solid wall traps and shows damp differently to a converted Victorian terrace with a suspended timber floor, so the same symptom can have a different cause a few doors apart. That is exactly why a diagnosis on the actual property matters more than a general rule of thumb.

Who we are

Damp & Mould Solutions UK is a leak, damp and mould solutions company covering leak detection, damp investigation, mould inspection, mould remediation and structural drying. We're rated 5.0 on Google from 20 reviews. The company is registered with Companies House (company number 16687136), registered office 19 Ravenscroft Crescent, Eltham SE9 4LL.

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