What is the Building Safety Act?
The Building Safety Act sets out safety requirements for landlords of high-rise buildings. The Act will strengthen arrangements for the safety of people in or about buildings as well as improve the standards of buildings.
High-rise buildings are:
- at least 18m or 7 storeys high,
- with 2 or more residential units.
The safety rules cover the different stages of building:
- design stage,
- planning stage,
- construction stage
- whilst tenants and leaseholders live in a building
The council manages 77 high-rise buildings. The Act became law in April 2022 and some elements of the it need to be acted on now with the remaining elements becoming enforceable between 12 to 18 months after that to allow organisations prepare for the changes.
You can also read the Council's Building Safety Act and Building Safety Pledge.
What are the responsibilities of the council?
Click here to read about our responsibilities under the Building and Fire Safety Acts
What are the responsibilities of tenants and leaseholders?
The Act outlines what tenants and leaseholders must do around:
- personal building safety responsibilities for your home and communal areas,
- ongoing building safety costs (payable by leaseholders who have leases for at least 7 years.)
Resident duties
Read about your duties and responsibilities and the dos and don’ts here
Leaseholders
The Act talks about what works can and can’t be recharged to leaseholders and how much can be charged. The finer details on this have yet to be released but the Act asks landlords to ensure their financial processes enable the recovery of safety related costs and are clear on disclosing the necessary information on what’s included and what’s not. The Act says that there will be ‘implied terms’ that will be applied to all leaseholder leases which will make the process clearer and enable recovery of costs to happen.
Complaints and resident voice
Residents can utilise the usual process to make complaints regarding these activities.
We provide opportunities for resident voices to be heard through groups like Tenants and Residents Associations, Residents Panel, and Residents Building Safety Group. We are employing Building Safety Officers and they will be allocated to a building and will provide a useful contact for residents.
How will this be regulated?
A new Building Safety Regulator will be set up to oversee building owners of high-rise buildings carrying out their building safety responsibilities.
We are also required to be clear on who is accountable for safety. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets as owner of the buildings is the ‘Accountable Person’ and has overall responsibility for making building safety case assessments and taking steps to ensure safety.
The council is also responsible for carrying out activities such as inspections, considering risk and delivering any necessary safety works and has recruited additional staff with the right skills to make sure this happens. The council is using regulator guidance and principles when developing approaches to building safety and this includes using their strategic plan, their cost benefit analysis and the findings from their Residents Panel consultation group.
More information about the Bill