New roles and responsibilities

The building safety reforms give dutyholders clear accountability and statutory responsibilities. These apply while buildings are being designed, built, refurbished and occupied.

New roles

Accountable person

Part 4 of the Building Safety Act identifies new dutyholders – who will be known as ‘accountable persons’ (APs) – for residential high-rise buildings (HRBs). This will be the organisation or person who owns or has responsibility for the building. It may also be an organisation or person who is responsible for maintaining the common parts of a building, for example corridors or lobbies.

The AP will usually be an organisation or business but could also be an individual.

The AP will have a duty to take all reasonable steps to:

If a building has more than one AP, the AP responsible for the structure and exterior of the building will be the principal accountable person (PAP). When buildings have a single AP, that entity or person is the PAP.

As well as their duties as an AP, PAPs must:

All occupied buildings must be registered by October 2023, it is an offence if a building is occupied but not registered after this date.

PAPs must also:

Detailed, accurate information about the building will be critical when registering a building and when preparing the safety case report.

Existing roles with new responsibilities

During design and construction

Existing dutyholders under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 will have new duties. These dutyholders are clients, designers, principal designers, contractors and principal contractors. Their new duties will be to:

their activities in relation to building regulations.

The dutyholders will keep their existing duties, including: 

Related content

Visit GOV.UK for more information about building safety reforms:

Updated 2022-06-22