The Remediation Bill 2026: What RTM Companies, Managing Agents and Building Owners Need to Know

What the Remediation Bill Is, and Why It Was Introduced

The Bill is a government proposal to speed up cladding remediation and the repair of unsafe external walls on existing residential buildings in England, and to make those legally responsible pay towards the cost rather than leaving it to leaseholders or the taxpayer.

The Building Safety Act 2022 already regulates the tallest buildings — broadly 18 metres or seven storeys and above — through the Building Safety Regulator and named Accountable Persons. Below that, there has been no equivalent legal duty to look for, or fix, an external wall problem; government has instead relied on voluntary applications to funding schemes such as the Building Safety Fund and Cladding Safety Scheme. Ministers say remediation across this wider stock of buildings has been too slow, and that a clear legal duty — backed by new powers to recover costs from manufacturers of unsafe products — is needed.

The Bill targets external wall systems — exactly what a FRAEW is designed to examine behind the panel.

The Proposed New Duty to Assess and Remediate Unsafe External Walls

The centrepiece of the Bill is a new duty on a building's "responsible entity" — broadly, whoever is legally responsible for maintaining or repairing the external walls — to:

• Commission a fire risk assessment of the external wall system within a set period once the duty applies (reports suggest around 10–12 months, to be fixed by regulations);
• Put interim safety measures in place without delay if the assessment finds an intolerable risk;
• Carry out any necessary remediation "as soon as reasonably practicable" to bring the risk to a tolerable level, not necessarily an "as new" standard; and
• Prepare, and keep up to date, a remediation compliance plan.

This would be a direct legal duty, not a scheme application — enforceable whether or not the building ever applies for funding. Who counts as the "responsible entity" depends on your building's own legal and management arrangements; see our existing explainer on "who is the Responsible Entity" for the Cladding Safety Scheme, a related but distinct concept.

Which Buildings Are Affected: Height and Storey Thresholds

As introduced, the new duty targets "relevant buildings" — residential buildings in England with two or more dwellings that are at least 11 metres high or have at least five storeys. This mirrors the existing "relevant building" definition in the Building Safety Act 2022, rather than creating a new test.

This sits alongside the existing "higher-risk building" regime (18 metres or seven storeys and above), already overseen by the Building Safety Regulator. In practice that leaves three broad bands: under roughly 11 metres (outside this duty, though some funding support still exists — see our guide to funding for buildings under 11 metres); medium-rise, roughly 11–18 metres (newly in scope, see below); and higher-risk, 18 metres/seven storeys and above. These figures reflect the Bill's current stage and may be refined — check the Bill text on the Parliament website.

What This Means for RTM Companies and Resident Management Companies

Where an RTM company or resident management company holds the lease obligation to repair the external walls, it is likely to be the building's "responsible entity" once this duty is in force — meaning the board itself would carry the legal obligation to assess, act and keep a compliance plan, with real exposure if nothing is done.

Timing matters: commissioning a FRAEW and a specialist team takes months, and the Bill proposes a fixed window for the assessment once the duty bites. Boards that start now, on a voluntary basis, avoid a scramble later.

What This Means for Managing Agents, Freeholders and Responsible Entities

Managing agents don't usually hold the repairing obligation themselves — that sits with the freeholder, RMC or RTM company instructing them — but agents will be central to discharging the duty day to day: flagging buildings in scope, briefing clients, commissioning specialists, and keeping the records a register entry or compliance plan would need.

Freeholders who manage directly, rather than delegating to an RTM company, would usually be the responsible entity themselves, with the duty and enforcement exposure falling on them. Either way, the practical step now is a straightforward portfolio audit: which buildings meet the thresholds, and which already have a FRAEW.

Buildings from roughly 11 metres upward sit within the proposed scope — overlapping with, but distinct from, the existing higher-risk building regime above 18 metres.

The Proposed Medium-Rise Building Register

Alongside the duty, the Bill proposes a medium-rise building register for residential buildings with two or more dwellings broadly in the 11–18 metre band — the gap between the "relevant building" floor and the higher-risk ceiling, not currently captured on any central register. Buildings of 18 metres/seven storeys and above already register with the Building Safety Regulator under the existing regime.

The aim is to give regulators a clearer picture of which medium-rise buildings exist, their wall construction, and who is responsible for them. Responsible entities would need to supply prescribed information, with some shared with residents; failing to register is expected to be enforceable in its own right, separately from the assessment duty itself.

Remediation Deadlines, Enforcement Powers and Penalties

The Bill sets no single, fixed national remediation deadline. Instead, a time-limited window applies to commissioning the assessment; after that, remediation must proceed "as soon as reasonably practicable" — enforceable, but dependent on each building's circumstances rather than a fixed date.

Enforcement would sit with the Building Safety Regulator, local authorities and fire and rescue authorities. Reported sanctions include substantial financial penalties, fines of up to £500,000 for serious breaches, and criminal prosecution — including potential imprisonment — in the worst cases. Where a responsible entity won't act, a regulator could apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a Remediation Management Order, taking over the project directly and recovering its costs, potentially as a charge against the owner's interest. Some existing Building Safety Act 2022 orders are also reported to be gaining stronger limitation provisions under the Bill — worth checking against the current text as it progresses.

Leaseholder Protections and Remediation Funding Proposals

The Bill proposes to extend — not replace — the leaseholder protections already in the Building Safety Act 2022, in three areas government has highlighted:

• Raising the multi-property threshold. Leaseholders who, as at 14 February 2022, owned more than three UK properties currently fall outside the main protection from remediation costs; the Bill proposes raising that threshold to six.
• Collectively owned and enfranchised buildings. New funding support is proposed for remediation where there is no separate freeholder — a gap in the current regime.
• Later buyers caught by a previous owner. Government says it is exploring help for leaseholders who bought after 14 February 2022 but remain unprotected because of a previous owner's portfolio — a stated intention, not yet a confirmed clause in the Bill as introduced.

The Bill is also intended to stop penalties for non-compliance being passed to leaseholders through the service charge, and to make it easier to recover remediation costs from construction product manufacturers at scale — a lower bar on causation, a wider pool of claimants including developers, and a new "inherently unsafe product" test. For the fuller current picture of who pays under existing law — developer, freeholder, leaseholder or government funding — see our guide to who pays for cladding remediation.

What This Means for Remediation Projects Already Under Way

For buildings already mid-remediation, with a FRAEW complete and works funded or under way, the Bill is not expected to require starting again — its focus is on buildings where nothing has happened, and on tightening accountability where progress has stalled.

Record-keeping still matters, though: the proposed register and compliance-plan duties assume a responsible entity can show what's been assessed, what's planned, and who is responsible for each part. Informally run projects should treat the Bill's progress as a prompt to formalise that paper trail now.

A Checklist: What Building Managers Can Do Now

None of the following requires the Bill to be law. All of it reduces risk and saves time if and when it is:

1. Confirm your building's height and storey count against the thresholds above.
2. Check whether a FRAEW already exists, and when it was carried out.
3. If none exists, get an initial professional view on whether one is warranted — see do I need a FRAEW?
4. Identify, in writing, exactly which entity holds the legal repairing obligation for your external walls.
5. Gather existing records — reports, correspondence, drawings, EWS1 history — so you aren't starting from zero later.
6. Where a risk has already been identified, confirm interim safety measures are in place and documented.
7. Review funding eligibility under the Building Safety Fund or Cladding Safety Scheme now.
8. Keep leaseholders and residents properly informed — information duties tend to become more formal, not less.

How Wrightwood Consulting Can Help

Wrightwood is a building safety consultant acting as coordinator and client-side project manager for RTM companies, managing agents, freeholders and other responsible entities working through this process. We are not the fire engineer or FRAEW assessor; we appoint and manage suitably qualified, independent specialists on our clients' behalf, and keep the project moving.