The Building Safety Act and RTM Companies: What the Company and Its Directors Must Do

If your block in England is at least 18 metres high or has at least 7 storeys, and contains at least 2 residential units, it is a higher-risk building under the Building Safety Act 2022, and an RTM company that has acquired the right to manage will usually be an accountable person for it. The duties (registration, risk assessment, the safety case report, occurrence reporting, resident engagement, complaints and record keeping) fall on the company, not on the directors personally, but a director can share in an offence the company commits through their consent, connivance or neglect. Below that height, the familiar fire safety regime applies instead, and the RTM company is often the responsible person for the common parts.

This article covers England only. The higher-risk building regime in Part 4 of the Act applies to buildings in England. Wales differs and is not covered here. This is general information, not legal advice.

Is your building a higher-risk building?

Section 65 of the Act defines a higher-risk building as "a building in England that (a) is at least 18 metres in height or has at least 7 storeys, and (b) contains at least 2 residential units." The Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023 fill in the detail:

• Height is measured from ground level to the top floor surface of the top storey; storeys below ground and roof-top plant storeys are ignored (regulations 5 and 6).
• Attached structures can be one building, and a self-contained section can be a building on its own (regulation 4).
• A building consisting entirely of a care home, hospital, hotel, secure residential institution or military accommodation is excluded (regulation 8).

If you are unsure, check the public register of high-rise residential buildings on gov.uk: a building that has been registered appears there.

How does an RTM company become the accountable person?

Section 72 makes a person an accountable person if they hold a legal estate in possession in any part of the common parts (which include the structure and exterior), or if they hold no legal estate but are "under a relevant repairing obligation", meaning required "under a lease or by virtue of an enactment" to repair or maintain them.

The RTM company fits the second limb. On the acquisition date, section 96 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 turns the landlord's management functions under the leases, including repairs and maintenance, into functions of the RTM company. Section 72(2)(b) of the Building Safety Act then takes the freeholder out: a person holding a legal estate in the common parts is not an accountable person for them if "all repairing obligations relating to the relevant common parts which would otherwise be obligations of the estate owner are functions of an RTM company." The Building Safety Regulator's guidance lists a right to manage company among the organisations that can be an accountable person.

Two consequences follow. If the RTM company is the only accountable person, it is also the principal accountable person (section 73), which carries the extra duties below. If some repairing obligations stay with the freeholder or someone else, there can be more than one accountable person, and the principal is the one holding, or responsible for repairing, the structure and exterior. Where it is unclear, an interested person can ask the First-tier Tribunal to decide (section 75).

Are the directors personally the accountable person?

No. The accountable person is the RTM company, a body corporate. The regulator's guidance is explicit that accountable persons cannot delegate their legal obligations: a managing agent can carry out the work, but accountability stays with the company.

Directors come in through section 161. Where an offence under Part 4 is committed by a body corporate with the consent or connivance of a director, or is attributable to a director's neglect, that director commits the offence as well. Section 161(4) and (5) contain a narrow carve-out aimed at RTM companies, resident management companies and commonhold associations: where one or more, but not all, of the directors have been appointed for a building safety purpose and are entitled to remuneration from the company, the section does not apply, so far as it relates to Part 4, to a director who is not entitled to remuneration from the company. On its own terms the carve-out does not help a board of unpaid volunteers with no paid building safety director.

The Part 4 offences an accountable person can commit include:

• allowing a higher-risk building to be occupied while not registered (section 77, the principal);
• failing, without reasonable excuse, to give the regulator prescribed occurrence information (section 87(4));
• an outgoing accountable person failing to hand over prescribed information (section 90(7));
• contravening a compliance notice from the regulator (section 99(5));
• contravening a requirement of Part 4 in a way that places people at "critical risk", meaning a significant risk of death or serious injury (section 101).

What must the company do once it is in charge?

Each duty below is in force today. Most of the occupation duties came into force on 16 January 2024 (S.I. 2024/40); registration on 1 October 2023 (S.I. 2023/993). Several duties run "as soon as reasonably practicable" from the time a person becomes an accountable person, so they start afresh for an RTM company on its acquisition date.

Registration and key building information

The principal accountable person commits an offence if the building is occupied but not registered with the Building Safety Regulator (sections 77 and 78). The regulator's guidance says that after applying to register, the principal has 28 days to give it more detailed information about the structure and fire safety of the building. At November 2026 the gov.uk registration page states a fee of £251 per building.

Risk assessment, risk management and the safety case report

Every accountable person must assess the building safety risks (the spread of fire or smoke, and structural failure) for its part of the building, and reassess at regular intervals (section 83), and take all reasonable steps to prevent those risks materialising and to reduce the severity of any incident (section 84). The principal must prepare a safety case report containing those assessments and a brief description of the steps taken, revise it when needed (section 85), and notify the regulator after preparing or revising it, giving a copy if asked (section 86).

Occurrence reporting and the golden thread

Accountable persons must report prescribed information about building safety risks to the regulator, and the principal must operate an effective mandatory occurrence reporting system (section 87). Accountable persons must keep prescribed information and documents up to date, obtaining what they do not hold where practicable (section 88). An outgoing accountable person must hand prescribed information to the incoming one (section 90): on an RTM acquisition, the outgoing accountable person is often the landlord, so ask for the information by name.

Residents' engagement strategy, information requests and complaints

The principal must prepare a residents' engagement strategy for involving residents aged 16 or over and flat owners in building safety decisions, review it, and act in accordance with it (section 91). Residents and owners can request prescribed information (section 92). The principal must establish and operate a system for investigating complaints about building safety risks or about how an accountable person is performing its duties (section 93). The regulator's guidance says the principal must keep a record of each relevant complaint for 7 years.

Building assessment certificate

When the regulator directs it, the principal must apply for a building assessment certificate (section 79). The regulator's guidance says the safety case report and the residents' engagement strategy are submitted at that point.

What if your building is not higher-risk?

Below the higher-risk thresholds, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 sets the main duties. Article 3 defines the responsible person for premises that are not a workplace as the person who has control of the premises in connection with carrying on a trade, business or other undertaking (for profit or not), or otherwise the owner. Article 5(4) adds that a person with a contractual or tenancy obligation to maintain or repair the premises is treated, for the purposes of article 5(3), as having control to that extent, so the duties also fall on it so far as they relate to matters within its control. An RTM company that has taken over repair and management of the common parts will commonly have control in this sense; who the responsible person is in a particular building depends on the facts.

• Scope. Since 16 May 2022 in England, the Fire Safety Act 2021 has made clear that in a building with two or more sets of domestic premises the Order covers the structure, external walls (including windows, doors and balconies) and common parts, and all doors between flats and the common parts (article 6(1A) and (1B)).
• Fire risk assessment. The responsible person must make a suitable and sufficient assessment, review it regularly, and, since 1 October 2023, record it as soon as practicable (article 9).
• Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (in force 23 January 2023). In any building with two or more flats and common parts used for evacuation, residents must be given fire safety instructions and fire door information (regulations 9 and 10). Above 11 metres, communal fire doors must be checked at least every 3 months, and the responsible person must use best endeavours to check flat entrance doors at least every 12 months (regulation 10). At 18 metres or 7 storeys, there are further duties, including a secure information box, floor and building plans, an external wall record and monthly checks of firefighting lifts and equipment (regulations 4 to 7).
• Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 (in force 6 April 2026). They cover buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises that are at least 18 metres high, have at least seven storeys, or are more than 11 metres high with a simultaneous evacuation strategy, and require the responsible person to prepare a building emergency evacuation plan, to offer a person-centred fire risk assessment to each resident whose ability to evacuate without assistance is compromised by a cognitive or physical impairment or condition, and, where an approach to that resident's evacuation is agreed, to record it in an emergency evacuation statement.

Personal liability also arises under the Order. Where an offence by a company is committed with the consent or connivance of, or is attributable to neglect by, a director or other officer, that person is guilty of the offence as well as the company (article 32(8)). Unlike section 161 of the Building Safety Act, the Order has no carve-out for unpaid directors.

In a higher-risk building both regimes apply side by side: the RTM company may be the accountable person under the Building Safety Act and the responsible person under the Order.

A short note on remediation costs

Schedule 8 to the Act limits what can be charged through the service charge under a lease (most protections only under a qualifying lease) for historical safety defects in relevant buildings (broadly, at least 11 metres or 5 storeys with at least two dwellings, subject to the exclusions in section 117). The protections are framed as limits on the service charge payable under the lease, so an RTM company demanding service charges needs to take them into account. One provision names RTM companies: since 24 July 2024, the bar on charging for legal and professional services about liability for relevant defects does not apply to services provided to an RTM company in connection with its own application, or possible application, for or relating to a remediation contribution order (Schedule 8, paragraph 9(1A), inserted by section 117 of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024). Whether the protections apply to your building and leases is a question for specialist advice.

What should a new RTM board check in its first month?

• Measure against the thresholds: height to the top floor surface, storey count, number of flats.
• If the building is higher-risk, search the regulator's register, confirm who is recorded as principal accountable person, and agree how the change will be reported.
• Ask the outgoing freeholder or agent, in writing, for the safety case report, residents' engagement strategy, complaints records, occurrence reports and key building information.
• Get the current fire risk assessment and its action list, and book a review if it is stale.
• Check when fire doors were last inspected and whether the records exist.
• Write down who does what: which director, which contractor, which managing agent, and who reports to the board.
• Check that the directors' and officers' insurance is in place and what it covers.
• Put building safety on every board agenda, with minutes.

For the wider handover checklist (insurance, contracts, funds and records), see taking over as an RMC or RTM director. For how the acquisition date and the transfer of management functions work, see the RTM claim process.

References

• Building Safety Act 2022, Part 4 - higher-risk buildings, sections 61 to 115
• Building Safety Act 2022, section 72 - meaning of accountable person, including RTM companies
• Building Safety Act 2022, section 161 - liability of officers of a body corporate
• Building Safety Act 2022, Schedule 8 - remediation costs under leases (mostly qualifying leases)
• Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023
• Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, section 96 - management functions transferring to the RTM company
• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
• Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
• Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025
• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, article 32 (offences)
• Building Safety Regulator - safety in high-rise residential buildings: accountable persons
• Building Safety Regulator - applying to register a high-rise residential building
• Building Safety Regulator - register or manage a high-rise residential building
• Building Safety Regulator - preparing a safety case report
• Building Safety Regulator - operating a complaints system
• Building Safety Regulator - find a high-rise residential building

Marklet is Right to Manage software for RTM companies: issues, service charges, Section 20 and managing-agent emails in one record.