The Building Safety Act Explained
The Building Safety Act created a new regulatory regime for higher-risk residential buildings, with named duty holders, a registration requirement, and an ongoing obligation to evidence that safety risks are understood and controlled. This guide explains which buildings are caught, who carries the duties, what the safety case report has to demonstrate, and where the regime has actually got to — including the 66% of building assessment certificate applications BSR refused in 2026.
In short
The Building Safety Act 2022 established a regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings in England — those at least 18 metres tall or with at least seven storeys, containing at least two residential units. It creates the Accountable Person and Principal Accountable Person roles and requires a safety case report demonstrating how building safety risks are being managed.
Which buildings are caught
The occupied-building regime applies to higher-risk buildings: at least 18 metres in height or at least seven storeys, and containing at least two residential units. Both the height-or-storeys test and the two-residential-units test must be met, which is what keeps most purely commercial towers outside this particular regime — though they remain subject to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and everything else.
Mixed-use buildings are where judgement is needed, and where the answer materially changes what an FM team must do. A tall building with residential floors above commercial ones can fall within scope even where the residential element is a small part of the whole. Getting the determination right early matters, because registration with the Building Safety Regulator is a legal requirement for occupied higher-risk buildings rather than an optional step.
- At least 18 metres in height or at least seven storeys
- And containing at least two residential units
- Mixed-use buildings can qualify on a modest residential element
- Occupied higher-risk buildings must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator
Accountable Person and Principal Accountable Person
The Act names duty holders rather than leaving responsibility diffuse. An Accountable Person is an organisation or individual holding a legal estate in part of the building or responsible for repairing common parts. Where there is more than one, the Principal Accountable Person is the one holding the legal estate in the structure and exterior — and it is the PAP who carries the headline obligations: registration, the safety case report, and the resident engagement strategy.
For FM and estates teams the practical significance is that these are accountable roles with named holders, and the evidence supporting them has to be producible on request. The regime also requires a mandatory occurrence reporting system for safety incidents, and duties to give residents information about the building's safety. None of that works on a filing system nobody can search.
- Accountable Person — holds a legal estate or is responsible for repairing common parts
- Principal Accountable Person — holds the legal estate in structure and exterior
- PAP carries registration, the safety case report, and resident engagement
- Mandatory occurrence reporting applies to safety incidents
The safety case report and the golden thread
The safety case report is the central artefact. Prepared by the Principal Accountable Person and provided to the Building Safety Regulator on request, it must assess the building safety risks — principally fire spread and structural failure — and set out the steps being taken to manage them. It is not a one-off document: it has to be kept current as the building and its risks change.
Underpinning it is the golden thread of information: accurate, current building information held digitally and accessible to those who need it. This is where the regime bites hardest on day-to-day FM. A safety case report is an assertion; the golden thread is the evidence behind it. If fire strategy documents, compartmentation drawings, damper test records, and material specifications cannot be produced and shown to be current, the report is unsupported — and building information that exists in a dozen formats across several contractors' systems does not meet an accessibility standard framed around the people who need it.
That is no longer a theoretical risk. BSR tests these reports through the building assessment certificate process, and announced on 9 July 2026 that 66% of the applications determined so far that year had been refused. BSR has not published a breakdown of why, so it would be wrong to put every refusal down to missing paperwork. But the certificate rests on the safety case report, and the safety case report rests on evidence the Principal Accountable Person has to be able to produce on request.
Where the regime has got to
The occupied-building regime is now several years into delivery, and the published data says it is harder going than intended. BSR has directed Principal Accountable Persons to apply for a building assessment certificate for nearly 2,000 buildings since the process opened in April 2024, working through the highest-risk buildings first. The first certificate was issued in January 2025, and BSR advises that an assessment usually takes a minimum of six months.
On 9 July 2026 BSR confirmed that assessments were taking twice as long as it had expected and that 66% of the applications determined so far that year had been refused. Its response is a more proportionate, intelligence-led and risk-based approach: concentrating on organisations that manage multiple buildings, using risk-based sample interventions rather than assessing everything to the same depth, giving volunteer-run resident management companies longer to prepare, and routing previously refused applicants through reassessment. Updated guidance and pre-application support were due from September 2026.
The regulator itself has also changed shape. BSR moved out of the Health and Safety Executive on 27 January 2026 to become a standalone non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. On the construction side of the regime, gateway 2 performance has improved sharply — BSR reported a 91% approval rate and a 22-week median approval time for new higher-risk buildings in the rolling period to 1 August 2026, against a strategic-plan target of 18 weeks and a 65% approval rating by 31 March 2027.
- BSR became a standalone public body under MHCLG on 27 January 2026, having previously sat within HSE
- Nearly 2,000 buildings directed to apply for a building assessment certificate since April 2024
- 66% of certificate applications determined in 2026 were refused, and assessments are running at twice the expected duration
- A building assessment certificate assessment usually takes at least six months
- Gateway 2 for new HRBs: 91% approval rate and a 22-week median at 1 August 2026
Related maintenance checklists
Related inspection checklists
How this applies by sector
Further reading
Compliance & CAFM
Track Building Safety Act duties on a compliance register
PM Assist's building compliance software holds this duty on a register for every building you manage, included in every paid plan.
- BSR Building Registration, Safety Case Report and Golden Thread Information each sit on the compliance register, showing when they were last done, when they are next due and the certificate behind them.
- Duties with no record held are listed as gaps, so nothing is missed just because nobody logged it.
- AI reads your certificates and proposes the dates and remedial actions; a person checks them against the source document before they count.
Sources
The regulatory positions on this page come from the following primary sources. Where guidance and legislation differ, the legislation governs — always confirm the requirements that apply to your own site and jurisdiction.
- Building Safety Act 2022 — legislation.gov.uk
- The Building Safety Regulator — GOV.UK
Frequently asked questions
What is a higher-risk building under the Building Safety Act?
Who is the Principal Accountable Person?
What is a safety case report?
How does the golden thread relate to the safety case?
What is a building assessment certificate?
How many higher-risk buildings have been assessed?
Why are building assessment certificate applications being refused?
Is the Building Safety Regulator still part of the HSE?
Make the golden thread genuinely accessible
Fire strategies, drawings, specifications, and test records searchable in one place — so building safety information is accessible to the people who need it, not just stored.
- Upload and organise building documentation
- AI-powered search across all your manuals
- Source-cited answers for every query
- Team collaboration and access control
- No credit card required to start
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