Building Safety Bill: a panacea for the remediation of unsafe buildings?

On 14 October 2026, the government published the Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc.) Bill (the Bill), alongside an accompanying guide. This follows the commitments outlined in the government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan and its subsequent update, in which the government set out three objectives:

While the Bill is likely to be amended as it passes through Parliament, we set out below the main provisions as currently drafted.

The Bill imposes legal duties on “responsible entities”, those responsible for repairing or maintaining the external walls of a building, which would include landlords, in respect of multi-occupied residential buildings over 11m or at least five storeys high that were completed before 28 June 2022. These duties will not apply to buildings subject to the developer remediation contract, according to the guide.

Failure to comply with these duties without a “reasonable excuse” will constitute a criminal offence, save in respect of the RCP. However, a “reasonable excuse” does not appear to be defined in the Bill or the guide, and it will be important for responsible entities to understand the extent of their liabilities.

For mitigation and remediation failures, a convicted responsible entity could face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to £500,000. Fines for failing to remediate can also be levied against parent companies, as with Building Liability Orders (BLOs). Where the relevant entity is a company and its failure to meet its remediation duties is attributable to the consent, connivance or neglect of a director, that individual may also be prosecuted.

The Bill proposes a new offence whereby someone who unreasonably obstructs any person lawfully assessing or fixing a building with serious external fire safety risks may be liable to a fine of up to £40,000.

Where a dutyholder has failed to take action, the tribunal may make a RMO allowing local authorities and Homes England to assess and remediate the external walls of a building themselves. The dutyholder will then be liable to repay the costs incurred in assessing and remediating the relevant building.

The Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) introduced a compulsory register for residential buildings over 18m in height. The Bill seeks to extend this to “medium-rise” residential buildings – those between 11m and 18m. Failure to register or provide the required information will be subject to civil penalties of £7,000, rising to up to £40,000 for continuing non-compliance.

This extension has been introduced because the government is concerned that it does not have full information on all medium-rise residential buildings; whether the penalties will prove sufficient to bring unregistered buildings onto the register remains to be seen.

The BSA introduced a new remedy against cladding manufacturers and suppliers where their products caused or contributed to a building being unfit for habitation. The proposed amendments in the Bill widen the availability of this remedy (previously only available to those with an interest in the building) to those who have incurred losses in remediating the building.

The amendments also arguably make such claims easier to prove, by focusing on safety and conduct and simplifying the causation test. We are therefore likely to see more of these claims going forward, particularly given the criticism directed at cladding manufacturers in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

Whether the Bill will meet the objective of fixing buildings faster is likely to depend on whether there are sufficient resources to enforce its provisions.

However, the Bill does not address the real difficulties and obstacles to remediation that those across the industry, who are working hard to put these buildings right, are encountering daily. These include a shortage of contractors and fire engineers, increased costs and complexity of remediation works, and a lack of resource at the Building Safety Regulator causing significant delays. Whether such issues will be raised and addressed during the Bill’s passage through Parliament remains to be seen.