Top building safety lawyers have welcomed a House of Lords Committee’s recommendations to the Regulator over the “unacceptable” delays being experienced by residents living in unsafe buildings.
Released this morning, a report by a House of Lords Committee has criticised delays in the approval process at The Building Safety Regulator (BSR), established under the Building Safety Act 2022, for construction projects.
In outlining its findings, the report said that in some cases, it is taking three times as long as the target time to decide on whether construction projects should be allowed to go ahead.
Commenting on the recommendations today, Liz Ramsden and David Morris, specialist legal advisors on the Building Safety Act at Knights, have said additional clarity on the approval process will help to ‘remove obstacles’ for the construction industry.
Liz Ramsden, Residential Property Partner at Knights, said:
“The delays are leaving leaseholders unable to sell when applications for remediations are stuck with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) and works cannot start. When they have been moved out for safety reasons, many leaseholders face not being able to live in their homes while also paying increased insurance costs.
“The ability to approve Gateway 2 applications within the statutory timeframe will undoubtably help to free up so many properties that cannot be sold due to these issues.
“I completely agree that the scope of the BSR shouldn’t be extended to lower buildings yet as this would lead to further overloading of an already struggling system. This would affect more than just the current high-risk buildings as many more would fall under the scope for remediation works, causing further problems with saleability and a slow down in the struggling leasehold market.
“More guidance from the BSR will only help improve application quality which means remediation works can begin quicker, and people can either move back into their home where they have been removed due to the severe safety concerns or be able to sell or refinance their properties.
“One of the aims of the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) was to protect leaseholders from costs, but many are finding that with the fees to the BSR and increased liabilities, service charges are increasing disproportionately.
“Unfortunately, leaseholders who bought prior to the BSA, or soon after when the impact wasn’t quite understood, are being hit with wholly unexpected costs.”
David Morris, Construction Partner at Knights, added:
“The Committee’s findings closely align to what I am hearing from clients. Whether new schemes or remedial works, they are experiencing severe delays, it is not clear what information they need to provide as part of BSR applications, and they ultimately face a real challenge to achieve approval within a reasonable timeframe.
“The role of the BSR is to approve applications and advise where necessary, so it’s no bad thing that some applications did not meet the required standard.
“Some of that was because of a lack of evidence in support, so we welcome the increase in guidance and communication with applicants. Some of that was because of errors and failures on the industry side, and that means the BSR is doing its job, albeit at some cost and delay.
“Moving forward the hope is that any obstacles - delays, clarity, applicable standards, communication, personnel - are removed and the process is streamlined on the part of both the building industry and the Regulator, and this report is a positive step."