Emergency Repairs on Higher-Risk Buildings – What must Clients Tell the BSR?

The Government has provided clarity on both what is considered emergency repairs on Higher-Risk Buildings (“HRBs”) and the steps clients must take when emergency repair works are required.

HRBs – a Recap

To recap, under the Building Safety Act 2022, an HRB is a building which is:

• at least 18m in height, or has at least 7 storeys; and
• contains at least 2 residential units.

Generally, building work on an existing HRB or the construction of a new HRB requires building control approval from the Building Safety Regulator (“BSR”) before the works can start.

Emergency Repairs

Where building work on an existing HRB consists of emergency repairs, the work can be undertaken without obtaining prior building control approval from the BSR. What has been unclear is what constitutes ‘emergency repairs’.

The Guidance clarifies that emergency repairs are “building work carried out to manage an urgent risk to the health, safety or welfare to people in or about the building”. Emergency repairs may be required when the urgent risk:

• cannot be avoided or managed with temporary management arrangements;
• occurs during planned building work and it would not have been reasonable to expect, detect or avoid it; or
• occurs because of a breakdown in equipment in the building.

Emergency repairs should be carried out promptly to address an urgent risk. However, any other building work needed to address the problem outside of emergency repairs requires an application to the BSR for building control approval as normal. Further, emergency repairs should not be carried out to fix problems that have occurred due to a lack of foresight or planning by the client or a contractor.

Compliance with Fire and Rescue Service Enforcement Notices

The Fire and Rescue Service may, in some circumstances, serve an HRB’s accountable person with an enforcement notice. To comply with such a notice, some building work may be required. Such work is not likely be considered emergency repairs as it does not need to be undertaken immediately. Rather, it will be necessary to obtain building control approval for work needed to comply with the enforcement notice. In such instances, the Fire and Rescue Service should be kept informed of the timeframes required.

What to Tell the BSR, and When

Although the BSR does not need to approve emergency repairs before the work starts, the client must still notify BSR about the emergency repairs. This should be done by the end of the first working day after the repair work starts. Such notification to the BSR must include:

• a description of the repair work;
• an explanation of the urgency and why an application for building control approval before carrying out the work would not be practical; and
• a description of any measures put in place to reduce the urgent risks until the repair work is finished.

A copy of this emergency repair information must be sent to the responsible person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Such information must also be retained by the client as it will make up part of the golden thread of building safety information about the HRB.

The BSR will assess the information on the emergency repair provided and decide on any next steps.

After Emergency Repair Work is Completed

Following completion of the emergency repair work the client must contact the BSR to apply for a regularisation certificate as soon as possible. The principal accountable person (“PAP”) must also to update the HRB’s building safety case report to include the emergency repair work.

Furthermore, mandatory occurrence notice and report must be submitted to the BSR if:

• the repair work was carried out to manage risks relating to structural failure or the spread of fire in the building; and
• the repair work likely prevented the risk of death or serious injury to a significant number of people.

Summary

Emergency repairs are building work which is carried out to manage an urgent risk to the health, safety or welfare of people in or about the building.

While BSR approval may not be required for emergency repairs on an HRB, there are still stringent procedures to follow with regard to such works. The BSR will want to know what work has been carried out, why, and the impact on the finished building. It is important that accurate records are kept of emergency repairs, as these are relevant to the duty to maintain golden thread information.

For more information on any of the topics discussed, please contact the Construction team.

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