The Building Safety Act 2022 is the most significant piece of building safety legislation to be introduced in the United Kingdom in a generation.
It was brought into law in direct response to the Grenfell Tower fire of June 2017, in which 72 people lost their lives, and the subsequent Hackitt Review, which identified fundamental and systemic failures in the way buildings were designed, constructed, regulated, and managed in the UK.
For building owners, developers, landlords, managing agents, and anyone with responsibility for a residential building of any significant height, the Act introduces far-reaching and legally enforceable obligations that are still being fully implemented today.
What Was the Problem the Act Was Designed to Fix?
The Hackitt Review, published in 2018 and led by Dame Judith Hackitt, painted a damning picture of a building industry and regulatory system that had, over decades, allowed a culture of cutting corners, passing responsibility, and ignoring risk to take hold.
The review found that the existing regulatory framework was not fit for purpose, that there was insufficient clarity about who was responsible for building safety, that residents had no effective voice in decisions affecting their safety, and that enforcement was weak and fragmented.
The Building Safety Act 2022 was Parliament’s legislative response to those findings.
It received Royal Assent on 28th April 2022 and has been implemented in stages since then, with key provisions coming into force in October 2023.
What Does the Act Do?
The Act makes changes across several areas of building safety law, but its most significant provisions concern higher-risk buildings, a new regulatory category created by the Act itself.
A higher-risk building is defined under Section 65 of the Act as a building in England that is at least 18 metres in height or has at least seven storeys, and contains at least two residential units.
For these buildings, the Act establishes an entirely new safety regime overseen by the Building Safety Regulator, a new body established within the Health and Safety Executive under Section 3 of the Act.
The Building Safety Regulator
The Building Safety Regulator has three core functions.
It oversees the safety and standards of all buildings, it implements the new and more stringent regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings, and it supports the wider built environment by promoting competence across the industry.
It has powers to approve building work on higher-risk buildings, to require the production of safety documentation, and to take enforcement action including prosecution where duties are not met.
New Duty Holders
One of the most important aspects of the Act is the introduction of clearly defined duty holders with specific legal responsibilities.
During the design and construction of a higher-risk building, these include the client, the principal designer, and the principal contractor, each with defined duties around planning, managing, and monitoring building safety throughout the project.
During the occupation of a higher-risk building, the Act introduces the concept of the Accountable Person.
Under Section 72 of the Act, the Accountable Person is the person or organisation that holds a legal estate in possession of the common parts of a higher-risk building, or that is under a relevant repairing obligation in respect of those common parts.
Where there is more than one Accountable Person, one must be designated as the Principal Accountable Person.
The Principal Accountable Person carries the most significant responsibilities under the Act.
Under Section 88, they are required to assess the building safety risks in the building on an ongoing basis, take all reasonable steps to prevent those risks from materialising, and produce and maintain a safety case report that demonstrates how those risks are being managed.
This safety case must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator, and the Regulator has powers to review it and require changes where it is not satisfied that risks are being adequately managed.
The Golden Thread
One of the most distinctive concepts introduced by the Act is the golden thread of building information.
Under Sections 88 to 91, the Principal Accountable Person is required to create, maintain, and keep up to date a comprehensive record of information about the building.
This includes its design, construction, fire strategy, structural details, and the safety measures in place.
This information must be stored digitally, kept current throughout the life of the building, and made available to the Building Safety Regulator on request.
The golden thread concept reflects a recognition that one of the key failures identified at Grenfell was the absence of reliable, accessible information about how the building had been modified over time and how it was actually performing against its original design intent.
The Act seeks to ensure that this information is never lost again.
Resident Engagement and the Building Safety Charge
The Act also introduces new rights for residents of higher-risk buildings.
Under Section 96, the Principal Accountable Person is required to establish and operate a resident engagement strategy, giving residents a meaningful voice in decisions about the management and safety of their building.
Residents also have the right to request information about their building’s safety case and to raise safety concerns directly with the Building Safety Regulator if they feel those concerns are not being adequately addressed.
The Act also introduces a new Building Safety Charge, which allows landlords to recover the reasonable costs of complying with their building safety duties from leaseholders, subject to specific limitations and protections introduced by the Act to protect leaseholders from unreasonable costs.
Protections for Leaseholders
Leaseholder protections are one of the most politically significant aspects of the Act, introduced in response to the cladding scandal that left hundreds of thousands of flat owners facing enormous remediation bills for fire safety defects they had no part in creating.
Schedule 8 of the Act introduces restrictions on the ability of landlords to pass certain remediation costs on to qualifying leaseholders, and places the primary financial responsibility for remediation on developers and building owners where defects exist.
How Does It Interact With the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005?
The Building Safety Act 2022 does not replace the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The two pieces of legislation operate alongside each other.
The RRO continues to govern the day-to-day operational fire safety management of occupied buildings through the Responsible Person framework, the fire risk assessment requirement, and the associated duties around fire safety measures, training, and evacuation.
The Building Safety Act adds a layer of structural and systemic oversight on top of that framework, specifically for higher-risk residential buildings.
For those managing higher-risk buildings, both regimes apply simultaneously, and the duties of the Responsible Person under the RRO and the Accountable Person under the Building Safety Act may rest with the same individual or organisation.
What Does This Mean in Practice?
If you own, manage, or have legal responsibility for a residential building of 18 metres or more in height, or seven or more storeys, containing at least two residential units, the Building Safety Act 2022 applies to you directly.
You will need to register the building with the Building Safety Regulator if you have not already done so, as registration opened in April 2023 and was mandatory by October 2023.
You will need to produce and maintain a safety case report, establish a resident engagement strategy, maintain the golden thread of building information, and ensure your building’s fire and structural safety risks are being actively and demonstrably managed.
For buildings below the higher-risk threshold, the Act still has implications, particularly around competence requirements for those involved in design and construction, and through the broader cultural shift towards greater accountability that the Act represents.
We Can Help
Navigating the Building Safety Act 2022 alongside existing fire safety legislation is a complex undertaking, particularly for those managing multiple buildings or dealing with legacy fire safety issues.
At ESI: Fire Safety, we work with building owners, principal accountable persons, and managing agents to ensure their fire safety obligations are fully understood and met, from fire risk assessments and fire door inspections through to supporting the production of safety case documentation and advising on compliance with the Building Safety Regulator’s requirements.
