Wales legislates for broader building safety remediation powers

Wales has enacted building safety remediation legislation that largely follows England's Building Safety Act 2022 but diverges from it in ways with significant implications for those with interests in Welsh buildings. The Building Safety (Wales) Act 2026, which received Royal Assent in late April, introduces Welsh remediation order (RO) and remediation contribution order (RCO) provisions; however, these are not yet operative. Both require Welsh ministers to make regulations before the regime goes live.

The Welsh regime is recognisably similar to England's in its objectives, protecting residents and reallocating remediation costs towards those who developed, owned or profited from defective buildings. However, there are principal differences between the two regimes, with practical implications for those with interests in Welsh buildings.

The English framework

In England, ROs and RCOs are already in force and a growing body of early case law is developing in the tribunal.

An RO requires a relevant landlord to carry out works to remedy a relevant defect in an eligible building by a specified time. An eligible building is broadly defined as self-contained, with two or more dwellings, and at least 11 metres or five storeys. An RCO requires a body corporate or partnership including landlords, developers and associated entities to pay towards remediation costs where it is just and equitable to do so. The relevant defect period is a rolling 30-year lookback from 28 June 2022, covering fire spread and structural collapse risks.

Early decisions including the Vista Tower and Sutton Court rulings, have begun to clarify the just and equitable test and the limits of the associated persons provisions. Those cases likely to be persuasive, if not binding, in Wales that the Welsh regime should be read.

The Welsh powers

Welsh ministers must lay draft regulations within nine months of Royal Assent. On that timetable, the earliest the powers are likely to become operative is late January 2027.

The Welsh regime operates by reference to three building categories. Category 1 buildings are 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys; category 2 buildings are 11 metres or more (or five or more storeys) but below the category 1 thresholds; and category 3 buildings fall below those thresholds. 

For remediation purposes, only category 1 and category 2 buildings are in scope as "relevant buildings", though Welsh Ministers retain power to adjust thresholds by regulations.

The relevant period in Wales is a fixed window, from 28 June 1992 to 20 February 2026,  rather than England's rolling lookback. Relevant works include construction or conversion completed in that period, works by or for landlords or management companies in that period, and later works to remedy relevant defects.

Welsh ROs

Under section 114, Welsh ministers must make regulations enabling the Residential Property Tribunal for Wales to make an RO on the application of an "interested person". An RO requires a "relevant landlord or management company" to remedy specified relevant defects or take specified relevant steps by a stated time.

Those eligible to apply as interested persons include the building safety authority, the fire safety authority, persons with a legal or equitable interest in the building, and others to be specified by regulations and could be a class encompassing leaseholders and residents' management companies.

Wales’ 22 local authorities will become building safety authorities, rather than having a separate body akin to the Building Safety Regulator in England.

Welsh RCOs

Under section 115, Welsh ministers must make regulations enabling the Residential Property Tribunal for Wales to make an RCO requiring a relevant body corporate or partnership to make payments towards the cost of remedying relevant defects in a relevant building. Two aspects of the Welsh RCO regime are notably broader than England's regime: who can be ordered to pay and who can recover costs.

First, in relation to who can be ordered to pay, a  "relevant body corporate or partnership" includes current landlords, those who were landlords as at 20 February 2026, which is a different qualifying date from the English regime's equivalent of 14 February 2022, as well as developers and associated persons.  

The Welsh association test is designed to be broader than England's, capturing contractual and economic control relationships rather than merely corporate group or shareholding links, and potentially reaching parent companies, joint venture partners and those exercising economic control through special purpose vehicles.

Second, in relation to who can recover costs, in addition to landlords, residents' management companies and right-to-manage companies and leaseholders who have paid remediation costs, Wales more explicitly includes public bodies and third-party funders as potential recipients of RCO payments. This opens additional recovery routes for those who have already committed capital to remediation.

Secondary legislation and English case law

The Welsh regime as enacted is deliberately skeletal. Its operative effect depends almost entirely on the pending regulations, and time will tell exactly what that delivers in practice. Welsh ministers have been notably critical of aspects of the English regime, particularly the direction of early case law on the associated persons provisions, which some have viewed as too narrow and technical in application. 

On that basis, it is expected that the Welsh regulations will be light touch, setting out procedural requirements and leaving the harder substantive questions for the courts to work out over time. If that proves correct, the developing case law will be crucial to watch for practitioners and those with interests in Welsh buildings.

The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) in England is already generating a growing body of decisions on remediation orders and contribution orders, spanning a wide variety of fact patterns and building types. Those decisions will not bind the Residential Property Tribunal for Wales; however, their real significance lies in what they feed upwards. 

As FTT appeals make their way to the Upper Tribunal – which sits for both England and Wales and whose decisions bind both – authoritative principles will begin to crystallise on precisely the questions that matter most to the Welsh regime. 

That shared appellate structure means that Welsh jurisprudence could be drawn into alignment with English law over time at the appellate level regardless of how the Welsh regulations are framed. 

Osborne Clarke comment

Both regimes share the same fundamental objective: protecting residents and reallocating remediation costs towards those who developed, owned or profited from defective buildings. Their mechanics, however, differ in ways that matter. The Welsh provisions are derived from, but are not identical to, the English model. Enabling regulations and Welsh government guidance could diverge materially from the English approach, and Welsh ministers have the deliberate tools to do so.

FTT decisions are likely to be persuasive before the Residential Property Tribunal for Wales particularly in the early stages but will not be binding, especially where Welsh statutory language diverges on association tests.

The later-enacted Welsh regime is drafted with deliberate flexibility and breadth. Whether that translates into a more agile enforcement tool in practice will depend substantially on the content of the secondary legislation and the resourcing of Welsh enforcement bodies. 

It will also be worth monitoring how frequently utilised these new powers are, noting the existing building stock in Wales is estimated to feature around 180 category 1 buildings and 450 category 2 buildings, a very different setting to the over 12,500 existing higher-risk building stock in England. 

Milly Brown, a trainee with Osborne Clarke, helped prepare this Insight.