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Building Safety Act/Resident engagement

Resident engagement

General information as at October 2026. Not legal advice; check the regulation or ask a competent person.

In a higher-risk building, residents have a right to safety information and a say in decisions about the safety of their building, and the accountable persons must have a strategy and a complaints route to give them both.

16
and over: residents the strategy covers
1
complaints route run by the principal accountable person

The engagement strategy

The principal accountable person must prepare a residents’ engagement strategy, consult residents on it, and keep it under review. It sets out how residents aged 16 and over, and owners of homes in the building, can take part in decisions about building safety, what information they will get, and how their views are taken into account.

Information and complaints

Accountable persons must give residents prescribed information about the building’s safety and make more available on request. The principal accountable person must also run a complaints system for concerns about building safety risks and about how the accountable persons are meeting their duties. A complaint that is not resolved can be taken to the Building Safety Regulator.

Residents have duties too

Residents must not act in a way that creates a significant risk of fire spread or structural failure, must not interfere with relevant safety items such as fire doors and alarms, and must comply with reasonable requests for information or access needed to manage the building’s safety.

Evacuation plans

Some residents need help to get out in an emergency. Personal emergency evacuation plans for residents of certain blocks of flats are now a legal duty under separate fire safety regulations. They belong with the engagement strategy: both start with knowing who lives in the building.

In SAMRISK

Safety case.

The safety case tool keeps the resident side of the duty.

  • The engagement strategy for each building, with its review date.
  • A log of what was sent to residents and when.
  • A complaints register, with reminders when a fire or cladding complaint has been open for more than 7 days.
  • A personal emergency evacuation plan register and evacuation drill log, visible to managers only.

£149 a month, add-on, any plan. Prices on the Pricing page.

Book a demoAbout safety case

The other guides

  1. Is my building higher-risk?The height, storey and homes test, how to measure, and registration.
  2. The safety case reportThe hazards, how they are managed, the evidence, and keeping it current.
  3. The golden threadWhat information to keep, in what form, and who can see it.
  4. Mandatory occurrence reportingWhat counts as an occurrence and how fast to report it.

From the news

  1. E-bike batteries, and the communal corridor they get charged in20 Oct 2026 · 5 min
  2. The second staircase rule, and what it means from September2 Jul 2026 · 5 min
  3. Residential PEEPs: the evacuation duty now in force30 Jun 2026 · 5 min
  4. Evacuation planning, and the people who need it most27 Jun 2025 · 5 min