Condensation isn't always your fault. Here's the legal difference between structural damp and lifestyle condensation, what the law requires your landlord to fix, and what to do if they won't.
We've all been there. You move into a new place with a fresh lick of paint on the walls and everything looking perfect. Then winter hits, and one morning you notice a corner of the bedroom wall has started turning black. You call the agent, hoping for a fix, and instead get told you're "obviously not ventilating the property properly." Case closed, apparently, and now it's somehow your fault.
Except it usually isn't that simple, and it's worth knowing exactly where the line sits before you accept that explanation.
Landlords and agents love to reach for "condensation" as an explanation, because it sounds like something caused by how a tenant lives rather than something the building itself is failing to do. And it's true that some condensation is genuinely down to everyday living, drying clothes indoors without ventilation, not using extractor fans, that kind of thing.
But here's what often gets left out of that conversation: if the property has poor insulation, a broken or missing extractor fan, inadequate heating, or windows that don't allow proper airflow, then condensation is a structural issue, not a lifestyle one. And structural problems, whatever caused the resulting mould, are the landlord's legal responsibility to fix, not yours. Government guidance has been explicit on this point: damp and mould are not simply the result of "lifestyle choices," and it's landlords who are responsible for identifying and addressing the underlying cause.
In other words, being told to open a window more often isn't necessarily wrong, but it isn't automatically the end of the conversation either.
Two pieces of legislation do most of the heavy lifting here. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires your landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair, and to keep installations for heating, water, gas, and electricity in proper working order. If your mould problem traces back to a broken heating system or an extractor fan that's never worked, that's squarely inside this obligation.
The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 goes further, requiring that a rented home be fit for human habitation for the entire length of the tenancy, not just when you move in. Mould is explicitly listed as one of the hazards that can make a home unfit under this Act, which gives you a route to challenge a landlord directly, including through the courts if needed, if the property genuinely isn't safe or healthy to live in.
You may have seen headlines suggesting Awaab's Law, which sets strict legal deadlines for landlords to investigate and fix reported hazards, now covers private renters. It doesn't, not yet. Awaab's Law has applied to social housing since October 2025, and the Renters' Rights Act gives the government the power to extend it to private tenancies, but that extension hasn't happened. It's still going through consultation and isn't expected to apply to private renters before 2027 at the earliest. Until then, your protection comes from the two Acts above, which are real and enforceable, just without Awaab's Law's specific fixed deadlines.
Report the problem in writing, not just a phone call, so there's a dated record of when you first raised it. Take photos and, ideally, a short video showing the extent of the problem and where it is in the property. If the landlord or agent tries to attribute it entirely to your "lifestyle," ask directly whether the extractor fans are working, whether there's adequate insulation, and whether a damp survey has ever been carried out. You're entitled to ask these questions, and a landlord dismissing you without answering them is not the same as the problem being resolved.
If nothing happens, your local council's environmental health team can inspect the property and, where justified, issue formal improvement notices compelling the landlord to act. And if you're worried about raising this because you fear retaliation, it's worth knowing that the abolition of Section 21 means a landlord can no longer respond to a legitimate complaint by simply serving you a no-reason eviction notice. Any attempt to remove you now has to go through a specific, legally valid ground, which makes it considerably harder for a landlord to punish you simply for asking them to do their job.
Sources: Shelter England: damp and mould problems, mydeposits: condensation and mould, landlord duties and tenant rights, Citizens Advice: damp and repairs, House of Commons Library: helping tenants with damp and mould, Ideal Response: Awaab's Law and private landlords, 2026