The Building Safety Bill has introduced a brand-new role an "Accountable Person".
The person who is accountable will be the duty holder for any high-risk buildings. Every higher risk building needs to have someone who can be identified as being an “Accountable Person”.
Who Is Considered an Accountable Person?
An Accountable Person is someone who will have various duties under the new legislation. The most important one would be to assess the risk of buildings on an ongoing basis.
They will also take reasonable steps to ensure that any major incidents do not occur and that such incidents are reduced as much as possible. The Accountable Person has to take into consideration building risks that could pose a risk to anyone who lives in the property.
The legislation allows for the scope to be expanded upon in the future, but the initial focus is to make sure that any safety risks that are associated with being in a high-risk building, are addressed.
Accountable Person VS Responsible Person - What’s the Difference?
Accountable Persons are usually freeholders or landlords who are generally responsible for the repair of a building.
They could be a corporate body, or it could be a partnership or individual. The Responsible Person would be the person who has control of the premises, which could include leaseholders, owners of the building or managers.
You will be an Accountable Person for a property if you hold legal possession of the common parts. The only reason why this wouldn’t be the case is if another person is under a legal obligation to maintain or repair the common parts in a long lease.
What does “Reasonable Steps” Mean for an Accountable Person?
As mentioned above, you will need to take reasonable steps as an Accountable Person to ensure the safety of the building.
The Accountable Person has a duty to eliminate safety risks through materials and to also reduce the general severity of such incident if it did occur.
Major incidents are defined in the draft as being one that results in severe injury or death to a significant number of people.
The government have clarified that duty holders must try and mitigate or control safety risk, regardless of its cause. This would include gas failure or electrical issues.
For this reason, Accountable Persons should have a holistic and comprehensive approach when ensuring compliance as well as building safety. This is opposed to putting a focus on a narrow scope of potential risks.
When Is The Role Of The Accountable Person Expected to Come into Place?
The regulations for an Accountable Person is set to come into place in May 2023.
Key Responsibilities of an Accountable Person
An Accountable Person will have a lot of responsibilities. This can include them having to appoint a building safety manager for the building as well as having a single resident engagement strategy.
This will be done in cooperation with any other Accountable People. An Accountable Person will also need to operate a system to help investigate the complaints of residents, while also needing to apply for a registration certificate for the property. A single safety report will then be generated.
Another responsibility would be establishing and then operating a mandatory report to signify the maintenance of the building and its safety.
It will also be the responsibility of the Accountable Person to keep a Golden Thread of Information. This was proposed in the draft for the Building Safety Bill, and it is a live document that has both accurate and up-to-date information, relevant to the building.
Registering the Building as an Accountable Person
As an Accountable Person, it is your job to make sure that the building safety risks are assessed while also taking reasonable steps to try and prevent the occurrence of risk.
An Accountable Person will also need to register the building and then apply for a Building Assurance Certificate.
It’s important to know that buildings that are occupied right now will need to be registered, and existing buildings that are not currently occupied will have to be registered at the point at which they become occupied.
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