D I R E C T O R S '   B U L L E T I N

H I G H  - R I S E   B U I L D I N G S   E D I T I O N

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Dear  Director,

We hope that this bulletin finds you well and keeping cool! 

This edition of the Director's bulletin specifically relates to High-Rise Residential Building management.

It covers: 

• Changes announced by the Building Safety Regulator for the Building Assessment Certificate process. 
• Resources from Jennings & Barrett to aid PAPs/APs in understanding compliance.
• Recent changes within Jennings & Barrett's team to accommodate the increased compliance demands.

We still require Directors of relevant higher-risk buildings to provide us with appropriate instructions to support your compliance. If you've yet to do this, you can do this here.

Building Safety Regulator (BSR) are making changes – but PAPs must continue to fulfil their legal responsibilities.

66% of applications for building assessment certificates received by the BSR in 2026 have been refused. Assessments are currently taking twice as long as originally anticipated – and the costs of this process are going through the roof. 

In light of this, the BSR announced that they are rolling out "a more intelligence-led and risk-based approach" to assessment processes.

Some of the changes they've detailed should be helpful to our clients – the Regulator intends to provide greater support to duty-holders and resident-led PAPs. 

However, the updates are not yet in force. Initial updated resources are expected to become available from September, 2026, with further support to follow. 

We have detailed the changes on our website, alongside describing our experience as Managing Agents for multiple Higher-Risk Buildings. 

PAPs and APs must continue to prioritise resident safety through building management.

Whilst we await further information and support from the BSR, we're continuing to advise relevant clients, and receive advise from our partners in safety, ARK Workplace Risk, that existing responsibilities for PAPs/APs remain legally in place. 

We have provided extensive information on these responsibilities in previous bulletin editions, specific emails to Director boards, through newly created resources, and most recently, through our High Rise Building Safety Webinar. 

Did you miss the webinar? Watch on Youtube. 

Our webinar recording of "Building Safety Act 2022 for High Rise Building Directors", which was delivered in association with ARK Workplace Risk, is now available on YouTube for clients to watch.

The slides are available here (please note that there are more slides than you would've seen on the webinar – time went quickly!)

We are pleased that more than 10% of our relevant clients joined the webinar session, and will be speaking about plans for future webinars in our upcoming Directors' Feedback Survey Report. 

Other Supporting Resources

We know that this legislation and resulting changes to Fire Safety Orders are hard to navigate. We have therefore created a master resource for relevant clients of Jennings & Barrett. 

This resource enables you to: 

• Submit your instructions as PAP to Jennings & Barrett.
• View our Resident Engagement sample, which we can create and personalise for your development to aid compliance.
• Access the Directors' Guide - our resource explaining relevant terminology and responsibilities. 

We have also recorded additional information on Resident Engagement Strategies, which is available here.

This provides wider context for:

• Why we're encouraging clients to take a digital, all-in-one approach to Building Safety Act 2022 compliance, and;
• Why our research into third-party providers made us conclude that we could provide clients with better value by delivering this in-house.

Changes within J&B resulting from the higher burden of compliance

Measuring by the size of the latest edition of the RICS Service Charge Management Code of Conduct alone (released April, 2026), the administrative, management and compliance burdens on Property Managers have increased 240% since 2009.

Within the past three years, most of these changes have come from the Building Safety Act 2009 (and other safety-related legislation/orders/regulations).

As a result, we've recently reorganised our business to ensure that our Property Managers and Operations Team have the capacity to continue their roles.

We now employ two staff members solely to manage compliance across our developments. 

Previously, we were encouraging clients to reach out to our Operations team with their Building Safety compliance queries and needs. Please note that you should now use the following contact: 

buildingsafety@jenningsandbarrett.co.uk

Clients who have yet to provide us with final instructions on your High Rise Building Safety Compliance/ Resident Engagement Strategies (including Personal Emergency Evacuation Planning processes, Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Systems, and Safety Concerns / Complaints Reporting management), should also be aware that the price of this service has increased for 2026-2027. 

This is detailed within the resources linked above, and we encourage you to view the Sample Agreement for this service, here. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this Directors' Bulletin.

If you have any questions about the content of this bulletin, or would like more information on any topic related to the management of your development, please send them to our Operations Team at operations@jenningsandbarrett.co.uk.

To find previous editions of our Directors' Bulletin, head to our Directors' Bulletin Library resource page.

Warm regards,

Joanna Bould

Managing Director

Jennings & Barrett

Has this email been beneficial to you? 

Feedback options have been removed for the Library version of this Directors' Bulletin. You're welcome to send any additional feedback to operations@jenningsandbarrett.co.uk. 

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