2025 is set to be a big year for construction & building safety law reform. We have provided you with a short summary of some anticipated developments below : 

• URS Corporation v BDW  

URS Corporation v BDW is currently awaiting judgment at the Supreme Court. It may provide us with some much-needed answers in relation to the scope and applicability of the Defective Premises Act 1972 (concerning un-inhabitable dwellings), perhaps most crucially in relation to whether actions under the Act can be brought not only by leaseholders and occupiers of dwellings but also those involved in the construction of the dwelling itself (developers); 

• The Definition of a ‘High Rise Building’  

Following the tragedy at Grenfell in 2017, a raft of legislative reform (including but not limited to the Building Safety Act 2022 and The Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023 (SI/2023/909) have been brought into force with the intention of increasing checks, controls, and safety of the construction industry as a whole. The Grenfell Inquiry released part 2 of its report, in which several key recommendations have been made. These include reform (potentially) to the definition of a ‘high rise building’ to expand its scope, alongside the setting up of a new ‘Construction Regulator’ with a focus on construction product regulation; 

• Remediation of defective cladding 

In November 2024, the National Audit Office estimated that up to 60% of buildings with dangerous cladding hadn’t been identified (perhaps owing to slow EWS1 surveys), and remediation progress was slow. The Government has announced a new ‘remediation acceleration plan’ to speed up the remediation of existing buildings, but the specifics remain yet to be seen, and   

• -Bringing into force existing legislation 

some provisions of the Building Safety Act 2022 are yet to be brought into force. Most notably, changes to section 38 of the Building Act 1984 (allowing civil litigation to be commenced in respect of a breach of the Building Regulations), Building Safety Levy (for new developments, payable by developers to fund remediation works) and a mandatory 15-year new homes warranty scheme remain in the shadows for now, but could hugely shake up the existing landscape if brought into force. 

2024 marked the beginning of long-awaited changes to landlord and tenant legislation, particularly in favour of leaseholders & tenants alike. Amongst the reform we can expect to see in 2025 are:  

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024: this piece of legislation acquired royal assent in May 2024. However, the majority of its provisions were intended to be enacted via secondary legislation, which has not yet occurred. The Act itself encompasses many areas of reform, including a general ban (save for limited exceptions) on leasehold houses, changes to the valuation rules on lease extensions (particularly of importance to leases with less than 80 years remaining and with high ground rents), widening the scope of transparency in respect of service charges and the removal of some of the draconian remedies for breach of certain rent charges; to name but a few. The Labour Government has in particular, passed comment on reform this summer, but we will need to wait on the specifics here.  

New consumer code for house builders: The Competition and Markets Authority published its final report on the housebuilding market in 2024. The Government has accepted many of its findings. It intends to bring in legislation to address a number of key areas, including a new mandatory consumer code and ombudsman scheme in order to strengthen and increase accountability for the standard of newly-built homes, greater protections for residents of private management (management company) schemes, and increased powers for leaseholders to challenge the expenditure of management companies. It will be interesting to see how far the Government goes in legislating for these issues.  

EPC updates (MEES Regulations): in 2024, the new Labour Government announced that it will increase the energy standards of properties let by landlords to a “proper” standard of ‘C’ by 2030. It remains to be seen how and to what extent the MEES regulations (may) be amended to account for the apparent increase of standards intended by the Government. However, it should be noted that the existing regime does not currently apply to fully mutual societies, and therefore, many RP’s currently fall outside the requirements of the regulations.  

How Capsticks can help 

Our construction expertise ranges from non-contentious contract negotiations to advising our Registered Provider clients on complex contract disputes and adjudication. Some of the anticipated reform this year may have significant ramifications for build contracts; particularly in respect of drafting to account for the high-rise building regime if the definition of a ‘high-rise building’ changes.  

We are at the forefront of building safety-related developments and have advised countless clients on the changes needed to their prospective build contracts, including providing bespoke amendments to the JCT forms of contract and drafting bespoke build agreements to better-suit our clients’ needs.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss the potential consequences to your build contracts of both existing and future changes to building safety legislation.