The Government plans to implement its Responsible Actors Scheme (RAS) under the Building Safety Act and has now published draft secondary legislation. The RAS will restrict certain residential property developers from developing properties in England if they do not sign a developer remediation contract with the Government.
Developers that meet the 'profits condition' of having an average annual operational profit over a three-year period of £10 million or above will be eligible for the RAS and are expected to join.
Members of the RAS will be expected to:
- Identify residential buildings they developed or refurbished over the past 30 years of a height of 11m+, that are known to have life-critical fire safety defects.
- Remediate and/or pay for the remediation of those life-critical fire safety defects.
- If any tax-payer funded work has been taken out on those buildings to remediate any fire safety defects, the developer is to reimburse the tax-payer.
- Keep residents updated on the progress of work.
- Comply with Government requests for information pursuant to the contract and regulations.
The RAS was initially introduced by the Government in March 2023 and is in response to unsafe residential developments, such as the Grenfell Tower. Those who refuse to join the RAS or do not adhere to its standards will face restrictions under building regulations that will prohibit them from carrying out further development.
The Government has previously stated that it intends to secure the draft RAS passage through Parliament before the summer recess (which begins on 20 July 2023), with a view to bringing the RAS into effect "by early summer".
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