Key Insights and Updates for the Building Safety Act

The Building Safety Act was introduced due to the Grenfell disaster in 2017.

Having obtained Royal Assent in April 2022, the Act’s primary aim is to control building safety risks in order to secure the safety of people within or around buildings.

However, the Act and its accompanying regulations can be difficult to understand and interpret, with the same term having different meanings depending upon where it appears.

This article is intended as a supplement to our past blog, “Building Safety Act 2022 – What You Need to Know”, adding some further details on the Act’s context and providing recent updates.

You can contact our Property Litigation team if you have any additional questions on how this legislation impacts you or your business. 

Although it would be easy to presume that the Building Safety Act is only of significant relevance to high-rise residential buildings, the Act is, in fact, as the guidance notes to the Commercial Property Standard Enquiries tells us, “one of the most far-reaching pieces of real estate legislation this century”.

Indeed, the Act permeates the commercial property sector, with several of its provisions applying to all properties, such as those that relate to building liability orders.

Further, “higher-risk buildings” (HRBs) can include mixed-use properties, as opposed to just wholly residential buildings.

The increased prevalence of assets such as purpose-built student accommodation within portfolios means this Act is all the more pertinent for investors.

Earlier this year, secondary legislation that introduces a new regime for the design and construction of HRBs within the BSA was published, with an enforcement date of 1 October 2023.

This introduced compulsory building control processes and building rules and amendments to the operation of building control inspectors.

For example, duty holder responsibilities were enforced for the owners of HRBs both during the construction of the building as well as when it is in occupation.

Moreover, there is now a requirement to create and sustain a ‘Golden Thread’ of information for every HRB. This regime is overseen by the BSR.

Indeed, except for those HRBs which fall under the transitional provisions, there no longer remains the option of using the local authority building control or an approved inspector – the BSR has been made the building control authority for every HRB.

Additionally, the BSR has to sign off works and distribute a completion certificate before any new HRB becomes occupied.

1 October 2023 also signified the deadline for registering all existing high-rise residential buildings, with the wide-ranging impact of the BSA being demonstrated by the fact that more than 13,000 applications had been started by this date by duty holders.

Indeed, it is an offence to now enable residents to occupy a high-rise residential building which is not registered.