Building Safety
In the years since the tragic Grenfell tower block fire in 2017, Ridgemont has grown a specialist team of building safety lawyers. We are trusted by our clients to help them navigate this complex and quickly evolving area of law
Introduction
At the centre of this specialism is the Building Safety Act 2022 (the BSA). However around that Act sits a constantly growing landscape of law made up of legislation that both pre dates and post dates the Grenfell fire and the BSA.
Safety issues arising because of fire risk has been the most widely discussed risk, but it is not the only one. Others include structural failure and flood.
As much as the Ridgemont team needs to know the growing network of new building safety law, our lawyers also need to be on top of the changing procedures and protocols operated by the Building Safety Regulator and new ombudsmen. The Regulator is very much itself still evolving its role and ways of operating and is increasing its resource in response to widely reported shortages.
Building Safety is not an area of law that sits in splendid isolation of others, but instead is one that overlaps significantly with others, in particular with health & safety law and planning law.
At the heart of the BSA is the concept of higher risk buildings (HRBs). Understanding the extra scrutiny and regulatory compliance that exists for the design and construction of new HRBs, the alteration of HRBs, buildings that become HRBs due to alteration, and for the remediation of HRBs, is central to the expertise of our team.
Transactional advice
Ridgemont advise clients on all of the building safety issues that arise with construction transactions. For example, when drafting and negotiating building contracts and sub-contracts for the design and construction of new buildings, we advise clients on the issues that need to be born in mind and addressed through standard form contract amendments.
Standard forms often contain few explicit building safety clauses (eg the JCT) and therefore we discuss how to deal with that with our clients. Frequent issues include how to deal with delay at the Gateways.
Regulatory compliance
We often advise clients on ad hoc issues of compliance with the BSA, CDM Regulations, Building Regulations and other associated rules and regulations. This is a particularly complex area of law not least because there are now so many rules and regulations, they often overlap and they are frequently being amended.
BUILDING SAFETY DISPUTES
We have advised our clients on a range of building safety related claims and disputes, against various parties in the supply chain, eg developers, contractors, professional consultants and product suppliers.
Claims can potentially be brought under, for example, the Defective Premises Act 1972, new defective product legislation and for Building Liability Orders under the BSA.
Remediation agreements
The Ridgemont team advises clients on the Responsible Actors Scheme and Developer Remediation Contracts (DRBs). The DRB requires developers to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects arising from the design and construction of buildings 11 metres and over in height, that it developed or refurbished in England over the 30 years ending in April 2022.