The Building Safety Act 2022: Prescribed building safety information in written demands and notices

The Building Safety Act 2022 (“the BSA”) was introduced with the aim of making homes across England and Wales safer by improving standards and regulating how the safety of certain buildings is to be managed.

This complex legislation includes provisions governing the construction and maintenance of new and existing buildings, but also ones setting out who should shoulder the cost of these obligations and of historic safety defects. In many cases it seeks to protect leaseholders from the burden of such remediation costs. 

A number of the provisions introduced by the BSA have fundamentally altered the landlord and tenant relationship when it comes to the recovery of certain costs, reallocating the burden in some cases and introducing new liabilities in others. 

Although most of the BSA is now in force in England, two new obligations designed to support the framework for building safety are still in the pipeline. These obligations are contained in section 113 of the BSA. When in force, they will require prescribed building safety information to be included with rent and other demands, and landlords to notify tenants of prescribed building safety information more generally.

The purpose of these obligations is to ensure that tenants of higher-risk buildings are adequately informed of who has responsibility for building safety for the buildings that they occupy. A higher-risk building is one that is 18 metres or seven storeys high and contains at least two dwellings. Care homes and hotels are excluded from the criteria. Government Guidance is available on the Criteria for being a higher-risk building during the occupation phase of the new higher-risk regime. 

It is unclear when these new obligations will come into force (section 113 is only in force for the purpose of making regulations at present). However, it is important that landlords understand what will be required of them and the consequences of non-compliance in order to prepare adequately. It is equally important for tenants to understand their new rights under the BSA. 

This note offers an overview of when the obligation to provide the information arises and what prescribed information is required to be given. It will be of particular interest to landlords and tenants of residential premises affected by the BSA. 

This note forms part of a series of updates from the Real Estate Dispute Resolution Team at Eversheds Sutherland on the BSA. Further updates can be found on our BSA Topic page. 

Read the full note here