What the Building Safety Act means for accountable persons

For every occupied higher-risk building, someone has to be legally answerable for its fire and structural safety. The Building Safety Act 2022 gives that responsibility a name, an accountable person, and where there is more than one, a principal accountable person to lead them.

The roles are not something you apply for or choose. They are determined by legal ownership and repairing obligations, whether or not the organisations involved feel ready for them. This guide explains how the roles are identified, what duties come with each one, and what happens when it is unclear who holds them.

Who is an accountable person?

Under the Building Safety Act 2022, an accountable person is a person or organisation that either holds a legal estate in possession of the building's common parts, or does not hold that legal estate but has a legal obligation to repair those common parts.

‘Common parts’ means the structure and exterior of the building, along with any shared areas provided for the benefit of residents in more than one unit, such as stairwells, corridors and communal balconies. A higher-risk building can have more than one accountable person: for example, a freeholder responsible for the structure and exterior, and a separate management company responsible for internal common parts.
The accountable person's role is distinct from the duty holder roles, client, principal designer and principal contractor, that apply during a building's design and construction phase.

Who is the principal accountable person, and how is that decided?

Where a building has only one accountable person, that person is automatically the principal accountable person. Where there is more than one, the role goes to whichever accountable person either owns the structure and exterior of the building, or holds the repairing obligation for the structure and exterior.

The principal accountable person is not appointed or voted for. If there is a genuine dispute over who meets that description, either party can refer the matter to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for a decision.

What duties does an accountable person have?

Each accountable person is responsible for managing structural and fire safety risk within the parts of the building they own or are obliged to repair. Their core duties include:

• Taking all reasonable steps to prevent a building safety risk materialising, and to reduce the severity of any incident if one does
• Contributing accurate, up-to-date information to the building's safety case and golden thread
• Cooperating with the other accountable persons for the building, and with the principal accountable person
• Complying with any notices or directions issued by the Building Safety Regulator

What additional duties fall to the principal accountable person?

The principal accountable person carries several duties that sit above the individual accountable persons' responsibilities:

• Registering the building with the Building Safety Regulator, and ensuring the building is not occupied unregistered
• Preparing and submitting the building's safety case report
• Establishing a resident engagement strategy, setting out how residents will be kept informed of, and involved in, building safety decisions
• Operating a mandatory occurrence reporting system, and a system for residents to raise building safety concerns and complaints
• Applying for a building assessment certificate when directed to do so by the Building Safety Regulator, and displaying it prominently once issued
• What happens if the accountable person or principal accountable person is unclear?

In practice, disputes tend to arise where responsibility for the structure and exterior is split across leases in a way the Act's drafting did not anticipate, or where a management company and a freeholder both believe the other holds the repairing obligation. Left unresolved, this creates a genuine compliance gap: registration deadlines, safety case obligations and resident engagement duties do not pause while ownership is disputed.

This is also where a change of ownership, or an insolvency or receivership process, tends to expose gaps in an existing accountable person arrangement, since responsibility must be re-established rather than assumed to carry over automatically. Our receiverships and debt advisory team regularly works alongside our building safety team on this type of handover.

Getting the position properly assessed and documented early, rather than after the Building Safety Regulator raises the question, is the more comfortable way to approach it.

Get expert guidance on your accountable person status

If you are not sure whether your organisation is an accountable person or principal accountable person for a building, or you manage a portfolio where the position varies by site, our building safety team can review your ownership and repairing arrangements and advise accordingly. Complete the form below and a member of our team will get back to you.