A Risky Business? The Building Safety Act in the First Tier Tribunal

Nia Moseley-Roberts

April 2025

Commended entry in the SCL Hudson Prize 2024, published in the SCL Journal: Spring 2025

The paper considers the tension between homeowner protection and the protection of commercial interests in a post-Grenfell world. The paper examines how the First Tier Property Tribunal determines a ‘relevant defect’ when considering applications for Remediation Orders under the Building Safety Act 2022. The paper considers the FTT’s decisions, focusing on the level of risk to be established before the FTT will order a landlord to perform remedial work addressing historic fire safety defects. The paper examines the BSA itself, and goes on to consider how fire safety risks are usually assessed, and the need for remedial work established, then it turns to the approach to risk assessment adopted by the FTT when considering whether to grant an RO.

I. Introduction – II. The Building Safety Act: Remediation Orders (s.123) – III. Assessment of a building safety risk: The standard approach – (i) Compliance-based assessment  – (ii) Risk-based assessment and PAS 9980 – IV. Assessment of a building safety risk: the FTT's approach – (i) Waite v Kedai – (ii) Culpin v Stockwood – (iii) Blomfield v Monier – (iv) Jing v Avon – V. Conclusion

The author: Nia Moseley-Roberts is a pupil barrister at Atkin Chambers

Text: 16 pages