The new regulatory regime for the Building Safety Act (BSA) came into force on 1 October 2023. The Building Safety Act 2022 brings in new roles and responsibilities which don’t only affect high risk buildings.
The new regime introduces fresh terminology, roles, responsibilities and other criteria that are important to understand for all projects that fall under building regulations.
Registering a high-rise residential building
High-rise residential buildings are defined as 18 metres tall or higher, or at least 7 floors tall, and must contain 2 or more residential units. It is a legal requirement that high-rise residential buildings are registered by 1 October 2023. The fee to register each building is £251.
Roles and responsibilities
The BSA 2022 identifies new roles and responsibilities for people and organisations who are responsible for the safety of high-rise residential buildings in England- accountable persons and the principal accountable person.
These responsibilities include registering high-rise residential buildings with the Building Safety Regulator.
It is the principal accountable person who is required to have registered high-rise buildings before 1 October 2023. An accountable person is an organisation or individual who owns or has a legal obligation to repair any common parts of the building.
Fire safety resonsibilties
As as result of the introduction of The Building Safety Act 2022, changes have been made to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These requirements apply to all non domestic premises such as workplaces and non domestic parts of multi occupied residential buildings (e.g. communal corridors, plant rooms). There are various responsibilities of the Responsibile Person e.g. requiring Responsible Persons of a building containing two or more sets of domestic premises to provide residents with relevant fire safety information in a format that is easily understood by the residents.
In addition, the Regulations require Responsible Persons to provide information on fire doors including that they should be kept shut when not in use, that residents should not tamper with self-closing devices and that
residents should report any faults with doors immediately
Extensive legislation and guidance has been issued under the Building Safety Act 2022 – further details can be provided by clicking here.