Professional liability after the Building Safety Act 2022

Seb Oram

February 2026

A paper presented to the Society of Construction Law in Reading on 11 February 2026

The paper has a new look at the Building Safety Act 2022 and asks two questions: First, given the stated statutory purpose of allowing claims to be brought directly against those responsible for building defects, what impact has it had upon claims against construction professionals? Secondly, to what extent does it impact on claims not concerning building safety risks, and not having the characteristics that pertain to building liability orders?

A. Introduction/scope of this paper – B. The structure of the BSA 2022 – C. The actionability of Building Regulations 2010 – C1. Requirements for building work generally – C2. How might Building Regulations be actionable; against whom? – C3. Are recoverable damages limited by the scope of duty principle? – D. The new dutyholder provisions – D1. The genesis of the provisions – D2. The new ‘dutyholder’ provisions – E. Liability of building control approvers

The author: Seb Oram is a barrister.

Text: 24 pages