The much-anticipated Building Safety Act 2022 is an epic piece of legislation in both scale and effect. Its origins of course stem from the tragedy of Grenfell and its raison d’être is to “give residents and homeowners more rights, powers and protections – making homes across the country safer”. The way to achieve this was much debated, and numerous wide-ranging amendments were made to the draft legislation during its passage through parliament. Even in the last few months, key amendments have been made to further strengthen protection for leaseholders. Only a handful of its provisions are yet in force, with the bulk to be rolled out during the course of the next 18 months.

A key area of public pressure and government focus has been to ensure leaseholders are protected from the costs of remediation for existing unsafe external cladding. Levelling up secretary Michael Gove announced in February that the government “will do whatever it takes to hold industry to account, and under our new measures there will be nowhere to hide”. The new measures discussed are wide-ranging and include a rectification regime, prohibitions on developers, and building liability orders, which place the onus of rectification on developers or manufacturers in the first instance to compel them to pay to put defects right.

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