Cristina Lago investigates how the Building Safety Act is reshaping remediation claims
The introduction of the Building Safety Act 2022 following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy has brought a seismic change to the construction industry and wider built environment, and following a recent landmark ruling, lawyers expect historic defects cases to go on the rise.
Last May, the UK Supreme Court handed down a judgment which sent ripples through the post-Grenfell regulatory landscape. The URS Corporation v BDW Trading ruling fundamentally expanded the scope of who can be held liable for fire safety defects and clarified the timeline for when those liabilities apply.
The case concerned a dispute between major housebuilder BDW Trading, better known as Barratt, and engineering consultancy URS, now part of Aecom. BDW had found serious fire safety defects on one of its residential developments and chose to voluntarily remediate them, even though it no longer owned the properties and wasn’t legally required to do so.
BDW then sought to recover the costs from URS, arguing that URS’s professional negligence caused the defects. URS contested that because BDW’s decision to fix the buildings was “voluntary” and occurred after the original work was done, the costs were too remote and outside the scope of URS’s duty of care.
But in a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed URS’s appeal, ruling that the duty of care under the Defective Premises Act 1972, as amended by the Building Safety Act, extends to professional consultants like URS, not just builders.
New time limits
The URS V BDW ruling confirmed that the liability for safety defects applies retrospectively to work done before key provisions of the Building Safety Act came into force in October 2023.
“The Building Safety Act has hugely increased the potential for historic claims based on the Defective Premises Act, with scope for much more extensive liability for these types of claims going back up to 15 or even 30 years,” explains Simon Lewis, partner in the construction and engineering team at Womble Bond Dickinson.
“The same extensive limitation periods also apply in relation to claims for construction and cladding products.”
When section 135 of the Building Safety Act came into force, retrospectively extending the limitation period for accrued claims under Section 1 of the Defective Premises Act from six years to 30 years, BDW made an application to amend its case to allow it to bring a new claim against URS under the Defective Premises Act.
But the Building Safety Act has not only extended the deadline for filing specific legal claims under statute law; it has also created new time limits to pursue financial compensation from those responsible for building defects, as well as their associated companies.
“The Building Safety Act has also introduced the possibility for far more exposure to contribution claims by those who have had to pay to remediate, as they look to spread the cost by asking other construction parties to contribute to that cost,” Lewis continues.
“The breadth of liabilities has also increased, with claimants being able to trace liability through to additional parties, by using building liability orders and remediation contribution orders, widening the liability net further.”
Although the Defective Premises Act has existed for half a century to provide protections for residential premises, it has been rarely used for remediation claims.
“The Building Safety Act has turned this on its head, with new rights under the Defective Premises Act, and a hugely extended limitation period under it, meaning that there is now much more focus on it as a potential route for recovery of loss,” Lewis adds.
“We are starting to see that coming through in disputes and in the courts.”
Grey areas
The Building Safety Act is the most comprehensive piece of legislation to hit the built environment in decades. However, it is still a young law with ambiguities that will require interpretation by judges as case law develops.
Courts are still figuring out when it’s appropriate to make ‘associated’ parties, such as parent companies or related entities, pay for fixing building defects, rather than just the original builders or developers, explains Olivia Jenkins, senior associate in the construction disputes department at Trowers & Hamlins.
“There is ongoing judicial uncertainty surrounding when the courts or tribunals will consider it “just and equitable” to exercise their discretion to grant a ‘remediation contribution order’ or a ‘building liability order’ against an ‘associate’ of those responsible for the creation of certain building defects under the Building Safety Act, which – if ordered – will hold them liable for all or part of the cost of curing those defects.
“While we now have some post-Building Safety Act guidance on what is likely to be considered “just and equitable” (and it non-exhaustively includes factors such as financial capacity, corporate group structures, commonality of company officers, and the merit in shifting the remediation cost burden away from leaseholders), there remains limited authority on the courts’ and tribunals’ interpretation of the test. Each case is likely to turn largely upon its own facts.”
Ambiguity has also emerged from varying interpretations of section 135 of the Building Safety Act, adds Greg Barton, associate specialising in construction at Trowers & Hamlins.
He says: “This is a point that has already come before the Supreme Court in URS v BDW when it was confirmed that the extended time limit for pursuing claims under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act applies to any action ‘by virtue of’ that section, meaning its application extends to onward negligence and contribution claims”.
Rising claims
The provisions brought through the Building Safety Act and the impact of the URS v BDW Supreme Court ruling are expected to increase the volume of claims against contractors, consultants and manufacturers, particularly regarding historical defects.
In an ongoing litigation against French materials manufacturer Arconic, Bouygues’ subsidiary Equans is seeking £2.73m over a north London council block refurbishment job that used the same dangerous cladding later installed on Grenfell Tower.
Separately, developer Lendlease initiated a claim seeking a building liability order against contractor Balfour Beatty over alleged fire safety defects in a Bristol residential development built more than two decades ago.
Lewis forecasts that the trend of increasing Defective Premises Act-related claims will continue over the next few years.
“So will the increase in the number of Contribution Act-based claims, where defendants seek contributions from others towards the costs they’ve incurred for remediating defective buildings and unsafe buildings,” he adds.
“We also anticipate that there will be an increasing number of claims based on defective construction or cladding products, with their associated contribution proceedings.”
Jenkins and Barton agree that the uptick in claims is unlikely to tail off in the near future.
“The future evolution of claims pursued in reliance upon Building Safety Act provisions in the next three to five years may, to a degree, depend on the timing and content of further anticipated secondary legislation,” says Jenkins.
These may include building regulation breach claims under section 38 of the Building Act 1984 – not yet fully in force but expected to expand claim volumes if enacted, construction product claims under sections 148 and 149 of the Building Safety Act, and anticipated further secondary legislation.
Barton concludes: “The recent publication of the Construction Products Reform White Paper on 25 February 2026 suggests that such secondary legislation is very much in the pipeline and an avenue that is very likely to evolve in the next three to five years”.
Other key cases
Grey GR Limited Partnership v Edgewater (Stevenage) Limited and others
In 2025, the first-tier tribunal ordered multiple associated companies to jointly contribute over £13.2m towards the remediation of serious fire safety defects at the Vista Tower development in Stevenage, setting a precedent on determining what is “just and equitable” when making remediation contribution orders against associated companies.
BDW v Ardmore
A significant Technology and Construction Court ruling which confirmed that historic fire safety disputes, including claims under the Defective Premises Act and the Building Safety Act, can be resolved through adjudication.
Monier Road Ltd v Blomfield
A landmark Upper Tribunal case that provided procedural clarity on the First-tier Tribunal’s approach to remediation orders and remediation contribution orders under the Building Safety Act 2022.
Triathlon Homes LLP v Stratford Village Development Partnership
This Court of Appeal judgment confirmed the retrospective power of the Building Safety Act to force developers to pay for cladding remediation. The court established that developer responsibility is central, and it is “just and equitable” to target developers, regardless of fault or corporate restructuring.