Building liability orders: section 130 of the Building Safety Act 2022

Building Safety Act 2022 s.130 · Building liability orders · Associates (s.131) · Information orders (s.132) · Technology and Construction Court

What is a building liability order?

A building liability order (“BLO”) is an order of the High Court under section 130 of the Building Safety Act 2022. It provides that a “relevant liability” of one company, relating to a specified building, is also the liability of another company associated with it, or the joint and several liability of several associated companies. The court may make the order “if it considers it just and equitable to do so” (s.130(1)).

In practice the jurisdiction is exercised by the Technology and Construction Court. In HB (WM) Ltd v Sto Ltd [2026] EWHC 1833 (TCC) at [82], Moody J said that the section “may perhaps be likened to vicarious liability, since it is a mechanism whereby one party can be made liable for the wrong of another for reasons of policy”. The power is unusual and far-reaching. It is difficult to overstate how far it reaches into ordinary ideas of separate corporate personality.

Why did Parliament create it?

The Explanatory Notes (paras 1072 to 1074) describe the practice of developing through a thinly capitalised subsidiary that is wound up once the development is finished, leaving the group with no long-term liability. Introducing the clause in Grand Committee on 28 February 2022, Lord Greenhalgh described the orders as a tool for “holding ‘polluters’ to account”.

But the section is not limited to special purpose vehicles. Arguments that it should be have consistently failed. In Crest Nicholson Regeneration Ltd v Ardmore Construction Ltd (in Administration) [2026] EWHC 789 (TCC) at [75] to [76], Constable J held that the purpose of s.130 is wider: “ensuring those who caused historical building safety defects should pay for their remediation”.

What must be shown?

Five things.

1. A relevant liability of the original company. Under s.130(3) that means a liability, “whether arising before or after commencement”, incurred under the Defective Premises Act 1972 or s.38 of the Building Act 1984, or as a result of a building safety risk (a risk to the safety of people arising from the spread of fire or structural failure). Four points follow:
   1. The Defective Premises Act limb needs no building safety risk at all. A flat unfit for habitation because of damp or a failed roof is enough.
   2. The building safety risk limb is not a gateway to every loss. In 381 Southwark Park Road RTM Co Ltd v Click St Andrews Ltd [2024] EWHC 3569 (TCC) at [27] to [28], Jefford J refused to extend the order to the leaseholders’ water-ingress losses.
   3. The real power of the section comes from s.135, which extended the limitation period for Defective Premises Act claims to 30 years, retrospectively. Put together, the two create a liability for historic projects that few groups could have predicted.
   4. The liability can be established by a judgment, by an adjudicator’s decision, or by an agreement. It need not be established at all where the order is anticipatory (see below).
2. Relating to a specified building. Orders are made building by building. An order “cannot make associated companies liable for the entire liability of the original body to the applicant across a number of developments”: BDW Trading Ltd v Ardmore Construction Ltd [2025] EWHC 434 (TCC) at [13].
3. Bodies corporate on both sides. Individuals are outside the section. Limited liability partnerships are bodies corporate (s.131(3)); limited partnerships are not, which matters in many private-equity structures.
4. An associate within the relevant period. Association is defined in s.131, and is essentially a question of control. The relevant period runs from the start of the works to the making of the order (s.130(6)). So a company that acquired the original company years after the works is within it. So is a company that controlled the original company during the works and has since sold it.
5. Dissolution is no obstacle. An order may be made in respect of a dissolved company, including one dissolved before the Act came into force (s.130(5)). The original company does not need to be restored to the register: BDW v Ardmore [2025] EWHC 434 (TCC) at [14](6).

Can an adjudicator’s decision be a relevant liability?

Yes. In Crest Nicholson the associates argued that a decision which binds only temporarily cannot be a “liability”. Constable J rejected that at [135]: “Its interim status does not mean that, pending any trial, it somehow does not create a liability. It plainly does.” In the alternative, the failure to pay the decision is itself a relevant liability ([140]).

A claim under the Defective Premises Act 1972 can be referred to adjudication, because it is a dispute “under” the construction contract: BDW Trading Ltd v Ardmore Construction Ltd [2024] EWHC 3235 (TCC) at [41] to [80], endorsed in Crest Nicholson at [162]. Adjudication followed by a BLO is now the fastest route to an enforceable judgment against a corporate group.

Can a BLO be made before the original company’s liability is established?

Yes. This is one of the most important developments since the section came into force.

• In BDW v Ardmore [2025] EWHC 434 (TCC) at [14], HHJ Keyser KC held that nothing in s.130 makes prior establishment of liability a precondition. The order can work as an indemnity: “If this original body has any relevant liability in respect of this specified building, this associate shall also have that liability”.
• Constable J adopted that reasoning in Crest Nicholson at [54] to [55]. He declined to borrow the test for summary judgment ([63] to [64]). The question is weighed factor by factor, and “the greater the Court’s confidence that the same order would be made following a trial, the more inclined it will be to grant an anticipatory BLO” ([64]).
• The benefit is not one-sided. Without an order, associates expecting to lose might not fund the defence of the original company at all ([81]).

A bare submission that the court should wait for the liability trial is unlikely to succeed. The associate will need evidence that there is a real prospect of the picture being materially different after trial.

How does the court decide what is “just and equitable”?

The discretion is wide, and the courts have declined to list the factors. Some clear signposts have emerged. In rough order of importance:

1. The purpose of the Act. Liability should rest with those who caused the defect and the group behind them, not with leaseholders, the public purse, or whoever has the deepest pockets: URS Corporation Ltd v BDW Trading Ltd [2025] UKSC 21 at [104] to [108]; Crest Nicholson at [76]. Once the gateway conditions are met, this factor decides most cases.
2. What the group did when the liabilities arose. In Crest Nicholson at [73] the contractor was placed into administration “for the benefit of the wider group, with the specific purpose of avoiding … the very specific liabilities that Parliament has purposefully targeted within section 130”. The restructuring was lawful, but it was “plainly of weight”.
3. The court’s confidence that the underlying liability will be found, which matters most on an anticipatory application.
4. Fair trial. Whether the associate has had a proper opportunity to contest the liability: Click St Andrews at [19] to [20]; Willmott Dixon Construction Ltd v Prater [2024] EWHC 1190 (TCC) at [18].
5. The associate’s means, which will rarely carry much weight: Crest Nicholson at [97].

Factors that have carried little or no weight: that the applicant is itself a commercial developer ([86] to [88]); comparative profitability, which the court called “an enormously wasteful distraction” ([93]); the applicant’s insurance ([116] to [119]); Building Safety Fund money ([113] to [115]); the applicant’s motive; and the group’s fire safety spending on other projects ([123]).

Can the order cover only part of the liability?

Probably yes. Section 130(2) refers to “any relevant liability (or any relevant liability of a specified description)”. In Crest Nicholson at [108] Constable J said there is “nothing in the language of the statute which requires such a binary outcome”. The point was obiter, because no reduction was made on the facts.

It may prove as important as the anticipatory jurisdiction. Where several associates are exposed, for example because the contracting company moved from one group to another, the court may prefer to split the liability between them rather than make each liable for all of it.

Can a BLO be made against a foreign parent company?

Very probably. In HB (WM) Ltd v Sto Ltd [2026] EWHC 1833 (TCC), three developers pursued the German parent of an insolvent Scottish cladding supplier. Moody J held that the claimants had a real prospect of showing that no question of extra-territoriality arises where the liability is governed by English law ([75] to [79]), and that “it would be odd if it was not intended to apply to foreign entities who would otherwise fall within section 131” ([81]). He did not decide the point finally ([86]). In my view the applicable-law analysis is right.

Default is not a strategy. In Mulalley & Co Ltd v Sto Ltd [2026] EWHC 1552 (TCC), the same German parent took no part and was held liable under a BLO for 87.5% of the remedial cost: £1,772,312.17, with interest and costs.

Procedure

• Forum. The Fourth Edition of the TCC Guide (1 July 2026), section 9, treats BLO claims as “TCC BSA Proceedings”. The claim must be accompanied by the Appendix L questionnaire. The Judge in Charge may hold a one-hour Allocation CMC within 28 days, and may direct that related First-tier Tribunal and TCC proceedings are heard together, as happened in Wallace Estates Ltd v Durkan Estates Ltd [2026] EWHC 2133 (TCC).
• Joining the associate. The associate need not be a party to the main claim: Prater at [17]; Click St Andrews at [22]. It will usually be sensible to join it and hear the application with the main claim.
• Information orders. Where the group structure is unclear, an information order under s.132 is the first step. It is available only against the company with the relevant liability, not against the associates: BDW v Ardmore [2025] EWHC 434 (TCC).
• Enforcement. The sum due under a BLO “is a debt, not damages”, and interest runs from the original company’s default without a separate order: Crest Nicholson (No 2) [2026] EWHC 1069 (TCC) at [46] to [47]. A stay was refused because there was “no evidence at all” from the ultimate owner.

Is Crest Nicholson under appeal?

Yes. The Court of Appeal granted permission on or about 9 June 2026, on five grounds covering the anticipatory order, the two-stage order, the adjudicator’s decision as a relevant liability, the adjudicator’s jurisdiction, and the adjudication BLO. No hearing date had been reported at the time of writing beyond an indication that it would be listed before October 2027. I expect the core of the judgment to be upheld. The points most open to challenge are the timing holding and the weight given to the group restructuring.

The key decisions

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