Part 4: Higher-risk buildings Residents’ etc duties Section 97: Access to Premises Background
The purpose of this provision is to make sure the Accountable Person is able to secure access to a residential unit when required for managing or assessing a building safety risk. It is expected that in the majority of cases, residents and Accountable Persons will be able to agree on whether access is necessary and how it should be granted without a formal request under this provision.
	Residents (aged 16 or over) and owners of residential units in higher-risk buildings are required, by virtue of section 95, to comply with three duties designed to ensure that residents play their role in ensuring the safety of the building they live in and to ensure the Accountable Person is able to discharge their duty to effectively manage the risk of fire or structural failure. Those duties are:
Not to act in a way that creates a significant risk of a building safety risk materialising;
Not to interfere with a relevant safety item; and
To comply with a request, made by the appropriate Accountable Person for information reasonably required for the purposes of their duty to assess and manage building safety risks.
	The Accountable Person may need access to one or more spaces in the higher-risk building that are controlled or occupied by a resident or by an owner of a residential unit. This access may be required so that the Accountable Person can confirm whether a resident has breached a specified duty, or in order to perform their own duties to assess and manage building safety risks and take reasonable steps to minimise them.
Example
An Accountable Person is informed by one of their residents that they will be carrying out a renovation of their flat. The flat has a supporting column within its footprint. The Accountable Person in this situation may want to inspect the work in order to ensure that the column has not been compromised and could therefore request access. If the resident refused to grant access, the Accountable Person could apply for access to assess whether this work poses a building safety risk.