Who writes down what the resident said, and when?
In short. Awaab's Law puts a fixed clock on hazard reports, and the clock starts when the resident tells you. Phase 1 has covered damp, mould and emergency hazards since 27 October 2025. Phase 2 adds seven more hazard types on 30 November 2026. Most of those reports arrive by telephone, a good many of them out of hours. Enquiry 360 is an AI voice agent that answers the call, captures what was said against your own process, and writes it into your own Microsoft system as a timestamped record. From £99 + VAT a month. You can ring 01924 926000 and hear it take one.
The duty is to act within a fixed time. The evidence is whatever somebody wrote down when the phone rang.
The clock starts with the report
Every timescale runs from the point a resident tells you about a hazard. Not from when it reached the repairs team, and not from when somebody got round to typing it up.
So the record of that first contact is what everything else is measured against. If it is a note on a pad, or a voicemail somebody listened to on Monday morning, then when the clock started is a matter of recollection.
What Phase 2 adds, and when
Phase 1 has been in force since 27 October 2025 and covers damp and mould along with emergency hazards. Phase 2 comes into force on 30 November 2026 and extends the same duties to seven more hazard types: excess cold, excess heat, falls, structural collapse, fire and explosions, electrical hazards, and hygiene and food safety. A third phase follows in 2027 for most of what remains.
The timescales:
- Emergency hazards. Investigated and made safe as soon as practicable, and within 24 hours.
- Significant hazards. Investigated within 10 working days.
- Written summary to the resident. Within 3 working days of the investigation finishing.
- Safety work. Begins within 5 working days.
- Longer repairs. Begin within 12 weeks.
That is a description rather than legal advice. The regulations are the authority and your legal team will have their own reading of them.
A lot of these calls come at the worst time
A leak at two in the morning. A smell of burning on a Sunday. The 24 hour emergency clock does not pause overnight, so the hours that are hardest to staff are the hours the duty still applies.
It answers at three in the morning and passes anything it cannot handle to whoever is on shift.
What it captures
It asks the questions your process defines, in your order, and writes the answers into your own Microsoft system as a structured record with the time on it. The conversation is kept alongside it.
So when somebody asks what the resident said and when they said it, there is an answer that does not rest on anyone's memory.
The decision stays with your team
It does not decide whether something is an emergency, and it should not. What it does is make sure the person who decides is looking at a full record rather than a note.
If you answer the phone on a landlord's behalf
The duty sits with the landlord. The evidence is produced in your contact centre. When they are asked to show that a hazard report was handled inside the timescale, what they can show is what your team wrote down.
It runs for every client you answer for, each to their own process. There is more on how contact centres and outsourcers run it.
Frequently asked
Does this make us compliant with Awaab's Law?
No, and anyone telling you a phone system does is overselling it. Compliance is about acting within the timescales and being able to evidence that you did. This handles one part of that: capturing the report accurately, with the time on it, in a system you can report from. The investigation, the repair and the written summary to the resident are yours.
Does it decide whether a hazard is an emergency?
No. It asks the questions you configure and records the answers. Classifying a hazard stays with your team. What changes is that they are deciding from a full record rather than a note taken in a hurry.
What happens to a call at three in the morning?
It answers, and takes the report the same way it would at eleven on a Tuesday. Anything it cannot handle goes to whoever is on shift. The 24 hour emergency clock does not pause overnight, which is why the out of hours calls are usually where this pays first.
Where does the record live?
In your own Microsoft Dataverse, in the region you choose, under your access controls and your retention policy. You can report on it in Power BI and automate from it with Power Automate, like any other record.
Our contact centre answers these calls. Can they run it?
Yes, and that is a common arrangement. They answer using your process and the record lands in your system, so the evidence sits where it needs to be rather than in somebody else's platform.
What about repairs residents report online?
That is your own website or portal, and it stays as it is. This covers the reports that arrive by phone, which is usually where the record is thinnest. When a call goes to one of your people instead, they work through the same process on screen and it lands in the same place.
Hear it take a report. Ring 01924 926000, describe a repair the way a resident would, and it will capture it as a structured enquiry while you listen.
Or read where the record lives, how contact centres run it, and the fuller picture for larger operations.