![HT-2022-000311 - [2024] EWHC 3569 (TCC)](https://backend.juristeca.com/files/emisores/logo_yJUntHA.png){kind=logo}
The application
The application
The leaseholder claimants, that is the second to eleventh claimants, make an application for a Building Liability Order under section 130 of the Building Safety Act 2022 against a background which is already set out in my judgment ([2024] EWHC 3179 (TCC)). In anticipation of that application being made, I made two relevant findings as to relevant liability in that judgment.
Section 130 of the Building Safety Act 2022 provides as follows:
The High Court may make a building liability order if it considers it just and equitable to do so.
A “building liability order” is an order providing that any relevant liability … of a body corporate (“the original body”) relating to a specified building, is also -
a liability of a specified body corporate …
In this section, “relevant liability” means a liability (whether arising before or after commencement) that is incurred --
under the Defective Premises Act 1972 or section 38 of the Building Act 1984, or
as a result of a building safety risk." A building safety risk is defined as:
"… a risk to the safety of people in or about the building arising from the spread of fire or structural failure."
Subsection (4) provides that:
"A body corporate may be specified only if it is, or has at any time in the relevant period been, associated with the original body."
In my judgment I found that there was a relevant liability within the meaning of section 130(3)(b) in two respects. Firstly, at paragraph 198, I said that in the light of the evidence of Mr Ferguson, the architectural expert, I was satisfied that there was a breach of certain clauses of the Freehold Purchase Agreement in the respects set out above in that judgment and that those breaches gave rise to a relevant liability for the purposes of section 130(3)(b). The relevant paragraphs immediately were the paragraphs of my judgment concerned with the evidence in relation to fire safety and I
set out Mr Ferguson's conclusions at paragraph 194 which drew together the respects in which his expert evidence, which I accepted, was that there was inadequate fire protection within the building. The second respect in which I found that there was a relevant liability within the meaning of section 130(3)(b) was in respect of the structural adequacy of certain beams which, in effect, support the upper storey of the property. That finding is set out at paragraph 219 of my judgment. Those were my findings as to relevant liability.
The order - and I will return to this point – is, therefore, necessarily sought in respect of that liability and, if made, the order will provide, as set out in section 130(2), that the relevant liability of Click St Andrews is the liability of another body corporate. The order is sought against the second defendant, Click Group Holdings, on the basis that Click Group Holdings is an associated company of Click St Andrews within the meaning of the Act. Further, as section 130(1) provides, the order will be made if I consider it just and equitable to do so.
Before I turn to those issues, I should say that there was always a claim for a Building Liability Order in the Particulars of Claim but, originally, that was made only on the basis of a breach of section 2A of the Defective Premises Act 1972. I did not find there to be any basis for finding such a breach in this case. That is explained in my judgment and I say no more about it. However, a late amendment was made to add a claim based on a relevant liability in the sense of a liability incurred as a result of a building safety risk and that is what I found there to be in the respects that I have already set out.