The Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 were made on 11 May 2026, extend to England and Wales, and come into force on 1 June 2026. As published on legislation.gov.uk, the instrument was made under the Building Safety Act 2022 and approved by both Houses of Parliament. The opening note makes clear that the instrument has been issued because of a defect in S.I. 2023/753, the original Responsible Actors Scheme regulations, and is being supplied free of charge to known recipients. Signed by Samantha Dixon at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the measure is best read as a corrective instrument rather than a fresh policy departure.
The Responsible Actors Scheme sits within the wider building safety regime introduced after the Building Safety Act 2022. The Explanatory Note says the scheme requires relevant developers to identify the buildings for which they are responsible and to remediate or mitigate life-critical fire safety defects, or repay the costs of doing so. Where those obligations are not met, the 2023 regulations allow building control and planning prohibitions to apply. That is why drafting accuracy matters. Small errors in secondary legislation can affect whether work can proceed, whether approvals can be handled lawfully and how quickly remediation can move from commitment to delivery.
Regulations 3, 4 and 5 address the clearest textual problem in the 2023 instrument. In regulations 13, 15 and 16, the phrase 'does not fall within' is replaced with 'falls within the categories of person described in'. The Explanatory Note states that the purpose is to remove a double negative. For developers, advisers and regulators, that change is important because the operation of prohibitions and exceptions depends on exact statutory wording. A double negative can make an eligibility test harder to read and harder to apply consistently. The amendment is intended to produce a direct reading of those provisions. Regulation 6 also removes regulation 30 from the 2023 regulations as part of the same correction exercise.
Regulation 7 revises regulation 33 of the 2023 rules, which concerns the building control prohibition. The amended text inserts references to applications for building control approval with full plans under regulation 14 of the Building Regulations 2010, updates the treatment of notices under regulation 16(4) and 16(5), and revises the reference to notices granting or rejecting an application under regulation 14A. The effect is to align the prohibition more closely with the current building control process. Applications involving full plans, and the notices that follow from them, are now expressly covered in the statutory text. For local authorities, building control teams and affected developers, that should reduce uncertainty about which administrative steps are blocked and which remain available when a person is subject to a Responsible Actors Scheme restriction.
Regulation 8 amends the emergency repair work exception in regulation 34. Where an applicable person proposes to carry out emergency repair work, the provision of a building notice under regulation 12(8) of the Building Regulations 2010, or a notice under regulation 16(4), is not to be treated as a breach of a building control prohibition. The amendment then adds a new paragraph confirming that, where this exception applies, the local authority is not prohibited from issuing a completion certificate. That closes an operational gap in the earlier drafting. Urgent work may be allowed to proceed, but it also needs a lawful route to formal sign-off. For owners, residents and regulators, that is a practical point rather than a technical footnote.
Regulation 9 makes a broader set of amendments to regulation 35, which deals with the exception for work to occupied buildings. The new wording brings amendment notices under section 51A of the Building Act 1984 within the exception and allows the local authority to accept or reject those notices. It also permits completion certificates and certificates for buildings occupied before work is completed under regulations 17 and 17A of the Building Regulations 2010, and allows acceptance or rejection of plans certificates under section 50 of the 1984 Act. This matters for schemes where residents remain in occupation while remedial or associated works continue. The revised drafting keeps routine administrative steps available even where a building control prohibition would otherwise interrupt the process. For developers and building control authorities, that supports continuity in live projects. For occupants, it improves the route to lawful certification as work is varied and completed.
Regulation 10 widens access to exceptions under regulation 36. An application to the Secretary of State for an exception to the building control prohibition may now be made by a purchaser as well as by an applicable person. The instrument defines a purchaser as a person who has exchanged a contract for the sale and purchase of a dwelling in the building, or of the building where it comprises a single dwelling. That is a targeted but important adjustment. A buyer with a committed contractual interest can now seek an exception directly instead of relying entirely on a developer or another applicable person to make the case. In transactions delayed by building safety restrictions, that may give purchasers a clearer procedural route and reduce the risk of stalemate where completion depends on a building control outcome.
The Explanatory Note says no full impact assessment has been produced because no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen. That statement should be understood in context. The instrument does not impose a new remediation duty, but it does change how the existing regime works at the level of approvals, notices and certification. Taken together, the amendments amount to repair work on the legal machinery of the Responsible Actors Scheme. They correct defective drafting, update the building control prohibition, preserve workable routes for emergency and occupied-building cases, and extend one key application right to purchasers. For firms operating under the scheme, the operative date is 1 June 2026.