BTR’s to-do list from the Building Safety Act

COMMENT In the economic quagmire of rising interest rates, high inflation and an uncertain outlook for real estate, one may be forgiven for temporarily losing track of the Building Safety Act timeline and its ever-changing scope.  Receiving royal assent in April 2022, the Act is bringing large-scale reforms to the way residential buildings are built and operated. The newly created Building Safety Regulator has now opened for registrations of occupied high-rise residential buildings. Things are moving ahead at pace. Contractors, developers and manufacturers have long been preparing for the impact of stricter rules for building safety, with many construction companies competing in the race for tech integration to comply with regulations and developers assessing their portfolios accordingly. While much attention has been dedicated to what the legal implications of the Act are for developers and contractors and where liability might lie in the case of unsafe assets, much less has been discussed regarding the practical implications for build-to-rent operators, or operators of any assets in the rental market.  Understand the requirements The reality is that the building sector has been in dire need of tighter control for many years. Responsible real estate organisations would have already been developing their self-regulatory processes internally to ensure they create safe assets that are fit for purpose. However, a common set of regulations and desired outcomes will ensure everyone follows the same safety and quality rules, avoiding disasters such as the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017. The Building Safety Act has also sparked debate on how contractors and developers are best positioned to respond. Many are still waiting for the rules to come into force to understand them before they overhaul their processes and force suppliers to comply, with 49 developers already having pledged to make the necessary building remediations, according to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. As building operators, we must prepare now to avoid delays. We have access to the rules the Act will enforce and a step-by-step guide on what measures each safety-compliant building must take to prevent and protect residents from a fire incident. The sooner we act from an operations perspective, the better placed we are to protect the people who occupy these buildings.  Fire safety and building regulation experts are hard to come by and essential to ensure timely compliance with the upcoming regulations. If developers and operators want to assess their current portfolio according to the regulations and receive building sign-off without delay, they must consider hiring in-house experts, despite the requirement for a building safety manager being taken out of the Act owing to potential costs to leaseholders.  BTR operators may not be able to rely on their existing teams on the ground to fulfil the role of “accountable person” (as outlined in the Act) to implement the required safety measures and interpret regulations. Potentially appointing an in-house expert or team of experts will completely transform operators’ ability to respond to the upcoming rules. Conducting a gap analysis of your current team against the relevant PAS standard is a good place to start. The British Standards Institute has issued PAS 8673, which covers competency and is available free of charge. Trust exercise  What is vital from a BTR operator’s perspective is communicating the upcoming changes to residents. Community engagement experts will form a critical part of our ability to respond to the Building Safety Act. The sooner operators engage residents and get them on board with the new regulations, the quicker they will be prepared in the extreme case of fire incidents and help to play their part in avoiding incidents.  Community managers will have to take into account all their residents and how best to communicate with them on an individual basis. Safety is about trust, and residents should trust their operators to communicate clearly and regularly and through a variety of different methods.  With a couple of months left until many of the building safety reforms come into force, operators should be getting ready to avoid costly delays to gathering and submitting the right documentation. An operator’s compliance approach should include having access to the right skills and resources, understanding the upcoming changes and how they affect each asset, and establish the best way of engaging with residents. Jake Matthews is head of facilities management at Native Residential Image © Peter Manning/LNP/Shutterstock