BSR building assessments are slowing down. Your duties aren't.

What the regulator has changed

In July 2026 the regulator announced a "more proportionate and targeted" approach to assessing occupied higher-risk buildings, and its October 2026 bulletin to principal accountable persons repeated the main aims. In summary, it will:

• call in new applications "only when necessary", until improved processes are agreed and communicated
• prioritise the applications it is already assessing
• simplify the assessment criteria and publish clearer guidance on what counts as a suitable structural and fire risk assessment
• give smaller, volunteer-run resident management companies more time to prepare their evidence
• explore pre-application advice with a named contact for resident-managed buildings, and faster reassessment for buildings previously refused

It is also reviewing the regime's impact, including costs to leaseholders, with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government before it sets timescales for future assessments. No end date has been announced.

Why it changed

Since April 2024 the regulator has directed principal accountable persons to apply for certificates for nearly 2,000 buildings. Applications have taken twice as long to process as expected, and 66% of applications so far this year have been refused. The regulator says many failed because they focused on process compliance rather than on managing safety effectively. It named volunteer-led resident management companies, commonhold associations and RTM companies as finding the process particularly hard.

That matters for boards. A refusal is rarely about one missing document. It is about whether the records show the building is actually being kept safe.

What hasn't changed

Every duty below applies now, whether or not your building is ever called in. Where the RTM or RMC company is an Accountable Person, the board must make sure the company:

• assesses the building safety risks, meaning the spread of fire and structural failure, and keeps that assessment under review (Building Safety Act 2022, section 83)
• takes all reasonable steps to prevent those risks materialising and to reduce the seriousness of any incident (section 84)
• keeps the prescribed information and documents about the building: the golden thread

Where the company is the Principal Accountable Person, it must also:

• prepare a safety case report and keep it under review (section 85)
• run a mandatory occurrence reporting system
• prepare a residents' engagement strategy and involve residents in decisions about building safety (section 91)
• keep the building's registration up to date

On safety case reports, the regulator could not be clearer: "PAPs must not wait for any future assessments before preparing safety case reports."

Fire safety duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 continue alongside all of this. Our guide to what RTM directors are legally responsible for covers them.

Deadlines that still apply

Two notification deadlines run from when the company becomes aware of a change, and both are easy to miss:

• 14 days for changes to the building summary, the principal accountable person, the accountable persons, or the parts of the building each one is accountable for
• 28 days for changes to the building's structure or fire safety information

For RTM companies, the riskiest moment is acquisition. When a new RTM company takes over a registered building, the accountable persons usually change. Check with the regulator what needs updating and diary it for the acquisition date, not afterwards. The outgoing accountable person must also pass on prescribed information about the building (section 90), so ask for the golden thread as part of the handover rather than months later.

If the regulator does direct the company to apply, it has 28 days from the direction to submit its application, including the safety case report. That is not long enough to start from nothing.

Using the time well

Fewer call-ins give a board time to get its records in order. A sensible order of work:

1. Confirm who the accountable persons and the principal accountable person are, and check the registration still matches.
2. Read the latest fire risk assessment and any structural assessment, and check every action has an owner and a date.
3. Ask the managing agent for the safety case report, or for a plan and a date for one.
4. Check there is a working way for residents and contractors to report safety occurrences, and that someone reviews it.
5. Agree the residents' engagement strategy and record when it was last shared with residents.
6. Minute that the board has reviewed all of the above, and when it will look again.

Free from the regulator: the LEASE course for resident directors and the BSR managing building safety toolkit.

How Blockwell helps boards of higher-risk buildings

What a well-run board can show

If the regulator called tomorrow, a board in good order could produce:

• A safety case report the board has read, with a date for its next review
• Fire and structural risk assessments, with an owner and date for every action
• Registration details checked against the building, with the date of the check
• A mandatory occurrence reporting process and its log, even if the log is empty
• A residents' engagement strategy and evidence that it is being used
• Minutes showing the board reviewed building safety, not just noted it