The cladding on your block is the same as it was in 2018. Your duty about it is not.
Since 23 January 2023, Regulation 5 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 has placed direct, named duties on the Responsible Person for the external walls of certain buildings. This is not the same thing as the building safety case duties under the Building Safety Act for higher-risk buildings, and it is easy to confuse the two. This post is about Regulation 5, which catches a much wider range of buildings than the Act's higher-risk regime does.
If you manage or own a residential block, the chances are this applies to you. The threshold is lower than people assume, and the duties are practical, ongoing things you have to actually do — not a one-off form.
Which buildings this covers
Regulation 5 applies to buildings that contain two or more sets of domestic premises and are over 11 metres in height. That is the trigger. Not 18 metres. Not seven storeys. Over 11 metres, with two or more flats.
That sweeps in a large number of mid-rise residential blocks that fall well below the higher-risk building threshold under the Building Safety Act. So if you have been telling yourself the external wall duties only bite on tall towers, that is wrong, and it has been wrong since January 2023.
The measurement is the height from ground level to the floor surface of the top occupied storey — the same way height is measured elsewhere in fire-safety regulation. If you are not certain where your building sits, get it measured properly rather than guessing.
What you actually have to do
There are two practical duties under Regulation 5, and they are distinct.
First, you must record certain information about the external wall system and keep it. This means knowing what the walls are made of — the type of cladding, insulation and any external features such as balconies — and recording the level of risk that the external wall design and materials present. Where you have assessed that risk and identified the materials, that record has to exist and be maintained.
Second, you must give the local fire and rescue service the information they need. Specifically, you must provide the fire service with up-to-date electronic information about the design of the external walls and the materials used in their construction, and tell them about any material change. You also have to keep a record of any risk the external walls present and the level of that risk.
The point of all this is straightforward. If the fire service is called to your building, the crews need to know what is on the walls before they decide how to fight the fire and whether the building's evacuation strategy still holds. Cladding behaves very differently depending on what it is. Giving them that picture in advance is the duty.
A real scenario
A 14-metre residential block, six storeys, built in the early 2000s. The freeholder assumes it is below the line for any cladding duties because it is not a higher-risk building and was never wrapped in the aluminium composite material that made the headlines.
That assumption fails on two counts. The building is over 11 metres with multiple flats, so Regulation 5 applies regardless of whether it is higher-risk. And "not ACM" does not mean "not relevant" — timber balcony decking, combustible insulation behind a brick slip, or render systems over insulation can all present external fire-spread risk. The Responsible Person here has a duty to find out what is actually on the building, record it, assess the risk and make the information available to the fire service. Doing nothing is not an option the regulation allows.
How this connects to the rest of your obligations
Regulation 5 sits alongside your existing fire risk assessment duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Since the Building Safety Act amended that Order, the fire risk assessment must consider the external walls where relevant. So the external wall information feeds your assessment, and your assessment should reflect what you know about the walls. They are not separate filing exercises.
If your building is also a higher-risk building — 18 metres or seven storeys and over with at least two residential units — you have further duties under the Building Safety Act, including the safety case and registration with the Building Safety Regulator. Regulation 5 does not replace those; it runs underneath them.
What to do next
Establish your building's height against the 11-metre threshold and confirm the number of domestic units. If you are over the line, commission a proper survey of the external wall construction if you do not already hold reliable records. Record the materials and the risk, keep that record current, and make sure the local fire and rescue service has the electronic information they are entitled to. When anything material changes on the façade, update what you hold and tell the fire service.
The duty is yours as Responsible Person. The fact that the building looks the same as it did five years ago changes nothing about what the law now expects you to know and to share.