Ministers have made the Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, with commencement set for 1 June 2026. The legislation states that it corrects a defect in S.I. 2023/753, extends to England and Wales, and was subject to the affirmative procedure, requiring approval by both Houses before being made. (legislationtracker.co.uk) This is a corrective instrument rather than a fresh policy settlement. The 2026 regulations amend the 2023 Responsible Actors Scheme framework in regulations 3 to 10, keeping the underlying scheme in place while adjusting how prohibitions and exceptions operate in day-to-day administration. (legislation.gov.uk)
The starting point is the Responsible Actors Scheme created in 2023 under sections 126 to 129 of the Building Safety Act 2022. According to the 2023 explanatory memorandum, the scheme requires relevant developers to identify buildings for which they are responsible and to remediate life-critical fire safety defects, mitigate those defects, or repay the costs of that work. (legislation.gov.uk) The same 2023 framework also created planning and building control prohibitions for developers, and persons they control, who are eligible for the scheme but do not join or comply. The Building Safety Act explanatory notes say those prohibitions were intended to encourage eligible firms to join and remain within a building industry scheme. (legislation.gov.uk)
The first set of 2026 changes is technical but still material. Regulations 3, 4 and 5 replace the phrase 'does not fall within' with wording that says a person falls within the relevant categories, which the explanatory note says removes a double negative from regulations 13, 15 and 16 of the 2023 rules. (legislation.gov.uk) For developers and legal advisers, that matters because those provisions govern invitations to apply for scheme membership, requests for an invitation and voluntary applications. Clearer drafting reduces the scope for dispute at the point where eligibility and participation are being tested. The same corrective approach appears in regulation 6, which simply removes regulation 30 from the 2023 instrument. (legislation.gov.uk)
The larger operational adjustment sits in regulation 33. The 2026 instrument updates the building control prohibition so that it expressly covers applications for building control approval with full plans under the Building Regulations 2010, together with associated notices on whether those applications are granted or rejected and notices in relation to building work. (legislation.gov.uk) For local authorities, building control bodies and developers, the immediate effect is a clearer list of documents that cannot be given or received when a person is subject to the prohibition. The change is less about creating a new sanction than about making sure the prohibition tracks the current building control process. (legislation.gov.uk)
The amendments to regulations 34 and 35 deal with exceptions, and these are likely to matter most on live projects. Where emergency repair work is involved, serving the relevant building notice or notice under the Building Regulations 2010 is not to be treated as a breach of the prohibition, and the local authority may still issue a completion certificate once the exception applies. (legislation.gov.uk) For work to occupied buildings, the instrument adds room for amendment notices under section 51A of the Building Act 1984, acceptance or rejection of those notices, completion certificates, certificates for buildings occupied before work is complete, and decisions on plans certificates. In policy terms, that keeps essential procedural routes open where people are already living in the building and works need to proceed lawfully and be certified properly. (legislation.gov.uk)
Regulation 36 makes the final notable change. A purchaser, not just an applicable person, may now apply to the Secretary of State for an exception to the building control prohibition, and the regulations define a purchaser as a person who has exchanged contracts for a dwelling in the building, or for the building where it is a single dwelling. (legislation.gov.uk) That gives a clearer route for transactions already well advanced when prohibition issues arise. The explanatory note also says no full impact assessment has been produced because no, or no significant, effect on the private, voluntary or public sector is expected. Even so, the practical burden now falls on developers, purchasers, local authorities and regulators to update internal processes before the amended regime takes effect on 1 June 2026. (legislation.gov.uk)