You took over the management. You may have taken over more than that.
RIGHT TO MANAGE DIRECTORS
Exercising the Right to Manage moves the landlord's management functions to your company. In a higher-risk building, that transfer can also move the building safety duties, and the freeholder can drop out of the regime entirely. Most RTM directors are unpaid leaseholders who volunteered to get the building run properly. Very few were told this part.
The freehold stayed put. The duties may not have.
WHAT MOVED, AND WHEN
Four steps, and the third one is where most RTM directors are surprised.
01
You acquired the Right to Manage
Once the acquisition date passes, your RTM company takes over management of the building. Nothing about the freehold changed. The landlord still owns it. That is the whole point of the Right to Manage, and it is also why the next three steps catch people out.
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, Part 2
02
The management functions moved with it
The landlord's management functions under the leases become functions of your company. Services, repairs, maintenance, improvements, insurance and management. It is not a menu. You do not get to take the ones you wanted and leave the rest.
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, section 96
03
Repairing obligations are the hinge
The Building Safety Act defines an accountable person partly by who is under a repairing obligation for the common parts. And it says this: where all the repairing obligations that would otherwise be the estate owner's are functions of an RTM company, the estate owner is not an accountable person. The freeholder can step out of the regime.
Building Safety Act 2022, section 72
04
Which can leave your company holding it
If your company is the one responsible for the structure and exterior, it may be the principal accountable person. That is the heaviest set of duties in the Act: registering the building with the Regulator, preparing and maintaining the safety case report, the golden thread of information, a resident engagement strategy, a complaints system, and mandatory occurrence reporting.
Building Safety Act 2022, section 73
This only bites above the threshold
All of the above applies where the building is a higher-risk building: at least 18 metres or seven storeys, with at least two residential units. Below that, the Building Safety Act duties do not apply. But the Fire Safety Order still does, and having taken over the common parts, your company is very likely the Responsible Person under it. Check which side of the line your building sits on.
If your company is the principal accountable person, the safety case report is yours alone to prepare. What that actually involves.
A board of volunteers should not have to become fire safety experts
HOW WE HELP
You took on the Right to Manage to get the building run properly, not to acquire a regulatory specialism. We are the fire safety function your board does not have, and we do not install, supply or fit anything, so our advice has nothing attached to it.
Work out where you actually stand
Whether the building is higher-risk, whether your company is an accountable person, and whether it is the principal one. Answered against your lease and your RTM transfer, not against a general rule.
Fire risk assessment you can defend
The common parts are yours now. We assess them properly and write findings your board can act on, rather than a document that sits in a folder waiting for an inspector.
Building Safety Act readiness
Registration, the safety case report, the golden thread, resident engagement. We tell you what is required, what you already have, and what has to be built.
Check what your agent is delivering
Most RTM companies employ a managing agent. We review what is actually being done against what the duties require, and tell you where the gap is.
Read the quotes for you
Alarm categories, door replacements, compartmentation works. We have no works arm, so when we say a specification is over-scoped, there is nothing in it for us.
Stand between you and the freeholder
Where duties are disputed between your company and the landlord, we set out the position in writing so the argument is about evidence rather than assertion.
None of this needs a crisis to start
FOUR THINGS WORTH DOING
The one most boards have never heard of
You can appoint a building safety director and charge it to the service charge
The Building Safety Act amended the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 so that an RMC or RTM landlord who is an accountable person can appoint someone as a director for a building safety purpose, whether or not they are a leaseholder, and recover that person's remuneration through the service charge. Your board does not have to find the expertise from among the residents who happened to volunteer.
Building Safety Act 2022, section 112, inserting section 30E into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985
Start here
Settle the threshold question first
Everything else depends on it. If the building is not higher-risk, most of the Building Safety Act duties simply do not apply to you, and a lot of anxiety goes away. Work out where your building sits.
Get it in writing
Find out who holds the repairing obligations
This is what decides whether your company is an accountable person, and it turns on your leases and the terms of the RTM transfer. It is a document question, not an opinion, and it should be answered on paper before anyone needs it.
If you are in scope
Registration is not a formality
It is a criminal offence to allow residents to occupy a higher-risk building that is not registered with the Building Safety Regulator. If your company is the principal accountable person, that duty is yours, not the freeholder's and not your managing agent's.
Do not assume
Your managing agent is not the duty-holder
An agent can carry out the work. The duty stays with your company. If things go wrong, the Regulator comes to the accountable person, and a contract with an agent is not a defence.
Find out what actually sits with your company.
Send us your building and we will tell you whether it is higher-risk, whether your RTM company is an accountable person, and what that means in practice. No works arm, no products, nothing to sell you at the end of it.