The Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) came into force on Tuesday 28th June 2022 and, as a precursor of this, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, wrote to the Property Institute and the British Property Foundation with a clear and strong message for residential managing agents and landlords.
With the new provisions of the BSA, landlords will be financially liable, in law, for the remediation of historical building safety defects and therefore leaseholders will now be protected when it comes to remediation costs for unsafe buildings.
More specifically Gove warns in his letter: “I am concerned by some reports that agents are attempting to continue to send invoices to leaseholders that would violate the Building Safety Act protections, which will apply retrospectively.
“It is important to be clear – from tomorrow, anyone who chooses to breach the statutory protections will be committing a criminal offence. Individuals involved in such criminal activity could face up to 10 years in prison, in addition to the consequences for their companies.
“Criminal exploitation of leaseholders will be treated as a matter of the utmost seriousness.”
The letter also sets out the expectations of Government about the steps building owners and those who manage buildings will be taking to comply with the requirements of the Act.
The full text of the letter is available here.
Institutions like RICS have already set up Building Safety Act information centres to assist their members with frequently asked questions.
