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The email landed at 4:51 PM on a Friday. It was from the Regulator of Social Housing. They wanted evidence of a single damp and mould case within 24 hours.
David is a board member at a mid-sized RSL in the North West. His association manages 1,200 homes. He had read about Awaab’s Law. He thought his team was ready.
That Friday changed his mind.
His housing team pulled the Awaab’s Law investigation timestamp from the repairs system. It showed the case was picked up within 14 days. Good.
But the TSM return told a different story. The RP1 figure, the one his board reports to the regulator, showed the repair had missed its target. Same case. Two clocks. One board paper.
“We had two versions of the truth,” David says. “And the regulator could see both.”
Why Your Board Sees Two Timelines
Most RSL boards are now living this exact problem. Awaab’s Law and the Tenant Satisfaction Measures pull from the same real-world repairs. Yet they arrive at the board as two separate reports.
Awaab’s Law demands a clear record of every hazard. When a tenant reports damp or mould, the clock starts. You must investigate within 14 calendar days. You must report the outcome within 7 days. Remedial works follow on a fixed scale.
The TSM regime asks your board to publish repair performance. RP1 measures non-emergency repairs completed on time. RP2 covers emergency repairs. These figures feed the annual consumer standards return to the RSH.
In theory, both draw on the same repair history. In practice, they live in different systems. The Awaab’s Law timestamp sits in your housing management tool. The TSM figure is calculated from your repairs performance data, often a separate export.
Someone reconciles them by hand before board papers go out.
That is where drift creeps in.
How Drift Happens
Manual reconciliation relies on one person spotting a mismatch. It assumes the two systems agree. They often do not.
A repair might be logged as “investigated” in one system but still “open” in the other. A contractor delay might push the Awaab’s Law clock while the TSM target holds. Small gaps. Easy to miss on a busy Friday.
But the RSH does not miss them. Since the consumer standards came into force, the regulator runs proactive inspections. It can request evidence of any case within 24 hours. When it does, it checks your Awaab’s Law record against your TSM return.
If they do not match, that is not a typo. That is a finding.
What the RSH Actually Looks For
The regulator is not hunting for perfect landlords. It is hunting for boards that cannot evidence what they claim.
A single mismatched case can trigger a deeper look. A deeper look can become an inspection. An inspection can become a statutory notice. For a board, that means reputational damage long before any fine.
David’s RSL avoided that cliff edge. Only just.
How One RSL Closed the Gap
Priya chairs the board at a similar RSL, 950 homes across two counties. Eighteen months ago, her team ran the same manual reconciliation. It took three people two days each month.
“We were proud of our numbers,” Priya admits. “Then we realised we couldn’t prove them from one place.”
Her team moved to a single compliance dashboard. Every hazard report, every Awaab’s Law timestamp, and every repair outcome now feeds one system. The TSM figures are calculated from that same source.
What Changed for Priya’s Board
One timestamp for every hazard, from report to resolution. TSM RP1 and RP2 drawn from the same data as Awaab’s Law. Board papers built from a single source, not two exports. A clean audit trail ready for any 24-hour regulator request.
Last spring, the RSH asked for evidence on a case. Priya’s team produced it inside the hour. One report. One clock. No reconciliation needed.
“We stopped worrying about which number was right,” she says. “Because there is only one.”
The Lesson for Your Board
Awaab’s Law and TSM are not competing obligations. They are the same story told twice. If your board needs two systems to tell it, drift is inevitable.
The fix is not more spreadsheets. It is one evidence trail.
Landlord Pro is a free compliance dashboard for RSLs and letting agencies. It tracks every Awaab’s Law clock from the moment a report arrives. It builds the timestamped audit trail your board needs, and it feeds your TSM figures from the same source.
No credit card is required. You can start today at landlord.compliance-engine.io.
Because when the regulator asks for one case in 24 hours, you should only ever have one answer to give.