What is the Building Safety Act?

HRBs are buildings over 18m tall or consisting of at least 7 storeys which have at least two residential units. The Act prescribed duties for individuals within HRBs to manage safety risks and improve their design and construction, by:

1. Creating the Building Safety Regulator (“BSR”) to oversee safety and performance of HRBs and enforce compliance with safety standards.
2. Introducing the concept of an “Accountable Person”, responsible for the safety of HRBs.
3. Creating duties for Principal Designers/Contractors to maintain safety standards during the design and construction phases of HRBs.
4. Mandating HRBs to obtain a Building Safety Certificate, issued by the BSR, to confirm that safety standards are met through regular inspections.
5. Ensuring engagement with residents, by requiring HRB owners and managers provide residents with information about safety measures.
6. Enabling remediation of unsafe cladding and safety hazards by providing funding mechanisms to support remediation works and ensure that costs do not unfairly fall on leaseholders.

Developers and building owners are retaining property and construction professional to ensure compliance with the Act; to integrate the Act’s safety measures into the design and construction processes and; to advise on retrospective remedial works, as breaches of the Act results in significant liabilities. Furthermore, leaseholders empowered by the Act’s mandate of transparency and enhanced safety measures, are retaining property and construction professional to ensure that HRBs meet safety standards.

The Act defines an “Accountable Person” for an HRB as: i) the owner of freehold or leasehold interest in any part of the common parts of an HRB; or ii) being obligated to repair and maintain any part of the common parts by virtue of being a party to a lease or where such an obligation is imposed by statute.

Accountable Persons cannot offload liabilities, even when a professional has been appointed to repair/maintain an HRB and has caused penalties for non-compliance for breaches of BSR duties by underperformance.

Retainers to obtain Building Safety Certificates from the BSR, or funding via remediation grants from Department for Levelling-Up, Housing & Communities’ Building Safety Fund to replace unsafe cladding or remedy building safety defects are increasing exponentially. So too are applications for Remediation Orders or Remediation Contribution Orders from the First-tier Tribunal pursuant to sections 123 and 124 of the Act, to remedy historic building safety defects. Such applications are made against persons who were landlord at the qualifying time or the building's developer, as well as any person "associated" with these parties.

Technical advice from architects, surveyors and fire safety consultants and schedules specifying relevant defects and remedial works required are instructive as to the approach required by clients to meet the Act’s provisions.