Higher-risk buildings in occupation Residents and redress
The Act places statutory obligations on the Accountable Person that will help to promote a strong partnership with residents. These obligations cover engagement and participation, complaints handling, information provision and the role of residents in helping to keep the building safe.
	The Accountable Person will have an obligation to produce and keep up to date a Residents’ Engagement Strategy setting out how they will create inclusive opportunities for residents to participate in decision-making about their building.
	The Accountable Person will be required to put in place an internal complaints process for safety complaints, and residents will be able to escalate safety concerns where there is a risk to building safety to the Building Safety Regulator. There will also be a duty to cooperate between the Building Safety Regulator and other regulators, ombudsmen and redress schemes to support effective complaints handling.
	Alongside this, residents will have a clear legal obligation to comply with a request made by the Accountable Person for information reasonably required for the purpose of fulfilling their duty to either assess or manage building safety risks. They will be required not to act in a way that creates a significant risk of a building safety risk materialising, nor to interfere with a relevant safety item.
	The Act also makes changes to the way the Defective Premises Act 1972 operates. That Act enables a person with a legal or equitable interest in a dwelling to sue a person (including a corporate body) who carried out work to "provide" that dwelling, i.e. built it from new or converted it from another type of building. The Act amends the 1972 Act and the Limitation Act 1980 to extend the period within which legal action may be brought. The limitation period is extended retrospectively from six years to 30, and prospectively from six years to 15. The limitation period under (the yet to be commenced) section 38 of the Building Act 1984 is also extended from six to 15 years. The Act also creates a new duty on those who do any work on a building which contains a dwelling to ensure that the work does not render the dwelling unfit for habitation. The duty will apply only to those who are doing work on a building in the course of business. The new duty will also be subject to a 15-year prospective limitation period.