The Building Safety Act Working Group announced on Friday 20 June 2025 that it intends to introduce a new streamlined resolution process for building safety related claims under the Building Safety Act 2022 ("BSA") which is significant for lawyers and their clients making and defending such claims. This represents a further shaping of the new legal procedures under the BSA, and offers the prospect of procedural advantages and greater certainty.
The objective of the streamlined resolution process is to facilitate disputes in which parties may be seeking different orders under the BSA, as set out below:
- Remediation Order ("RO") under section 123 of the BSA;
- Remediation Contribution Order ("RCO") under section 124 of the BSA; and
- Building Liability Order ("BLO") under section 130 of the BSA.
This is because applications for a RO and/or a RCO fall within the jurisdiction of the FTT, while claims for a BLO fall within the jurisdiction of the TCC. In some circumstances, both sets of proceedings will relate to the same relevant defects. As such, it is possible that one set of facts may be subject to two sets of proceedings in circumstances where a Claimant seeks a RO and/or RCO and, concurrently, a BLO, presenting a practical difficulty and the risk of competing and contradictory factual findings, and uncertainty for parties.
The proposed streamlined resolution process will introduce a procedure for a combined sitting of the FTT and TCC to determine whether a RO and/or RCO, as well as a BLO, will be made. This aims to reduce the time and legal costs incurred by the parties, but also to improve consistency in the decisions being made across the two tribunals.
While the details are yet to be confirmed, it is understood that:
- the parties will be required to fill out a questionnaire at the outset for review by a TCC judge. The questionnaire will request details of what orders (if any) the parties are seeking; this will allow a judge to determine whether it will be necessary for any TCC and FTT proceedings to be heard together;
- where proceedings are heard together, the tribunal will consist of one TCC Judge (sitting in both the TCC and the FTT); and
- the judge will issue separate judgments for the FTT and TCC proceedings respectively.
As mentioned above, the precise details of the new streamlined resolution process are yet to be confirmed. In due course, clarification will be required on how the two sets of proceedings will sit together in circumstances where there are divergences in the current procedures. For example:
- the two tribunals have different rules of procedure – while the TCC follows the Civil Procedure Rules ("CPR"), the FTT follows its own procedural rules;
- the general rule in the FTT is that parties bear their own legal costs (although see our recent article on costs recovered under a RCO). Conversely, claims proceeding in the TCC will be subject to the cost rules under the CPR: that is, generally speaking, a successful party will be awarded its legal costs; and
- there are different rules of appeal – while TCC decisions are appealed to the Court of Appeal, FTT decisions are appealed to the Upper Tribunal.
Consequent amends will be made to the TCC Guide in due course, alongside other amends relating to building safety claims generally.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
