News: Building Safety Bill published

This week saw the long-awaited publication of the Building Safety Bill, the next step in reforms to give residents and homeowners more rights, powers and protections, with the aim of making homes safer.

The wide range of changes being introduced in the bill will overhaul regulations and have a big impact on the construction, maintenance and management of residential buildings.

The bill also sets out the framework to improve compliance, with tougher penalties for those who break the rules and mandates developers to belong to a New Homes Ombudsman scheme.

It is estimated that be it will be 9 – 12 months before the bill gains Royal Assent. It could then take another 18 months for secondary legislation and transition to the main regime; therefore even if all goes to plan, the bill may not come into force until 2023 – 2024.

A handy one page document summarising the bill can be found here.

All the information relating to the bill can be found here.