Managing a High-Rise Residential Building Under the Building Safety Act

The Building Safety Act 2022 created a new regime for the tallest residential buildings in England, run by the Building Safety Regulator. If you own or manage a residential tower, these are the duties you need to understand.

What is a higher-risk building?

For occupied buildings, a higher-risk building is one that is at least 18 metres tall or has at least seven storeys, and contains at least two residential units. Occupied higher-risk buildings must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator.

Who is responsible?

Each higher-risk building has one or more Accountable Persons, typically the freeholder and any party with repairing obligations for the common parts, such as an RMC or RTM company. One of them is the Principal Accountable Person, who carries additional duties. A managing agent can do much of the work, but the legal accountability stays with them.

The core duties

• Assess building safety risks: the spread of fire and structural failure, and how they could affect people in and around the building
• Manage those risks by taking all reasonable steps to prevent a major incident and reduce its severity
• Prepare a safety case report showing how risks have been assessed and are being managed. The Regulator will ask for it when it calls the building in for a building assessment certificate
• Keep the golden thread: accurate, up-to-date information about the building, kept digitally and available to those who need it
• Engage residents through a resident engagement strategy that explains how residents will be informed and consulted about safety decisions
• Run a complaints system for building safety concerns, and report significant safety occurrences

Fire safety duties on top

Separately, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 require responsible persons in high-rise residential buildings to provide a secure information box, wayfinding signage, plans and external wall information for the fire and rescue service, and monthly checks of firefighting lifts and key fire-fighting equipment.

Leaseholders and remediation costs

The Act also introduced protections that limit, and in many cases remove, what qualifying leaseholders can be charged for historical safety defects such as unsafe cladding. Anyone managing remediation needs to apply those protections correctly when setting service charges.

The regime is detailed and the Regulator expects it to be followed. If you are an Accountable Person and would like a clear picture of where your building stands, start with a gap review of registration, key building information, the safety case and resident engagement.