Navigating building and fire safety claims: improvement notices

There have been many changes to building and fire safety claims and it is easy to be confused by the evolving landscape. In the final part of a series explaining the most important legal vehicles being used in claims, Chris Bates, Sara Stephens and Jamil Sanaullah take a look at improvement notices.

Improvement notices are an enforcement power introduced under sections 11 and 12 of the Housing Act 2004. They are therefore not a new power. They are, in fact, a longstanding feature of England and Wales’ enforcement framework in relation to unsafe premises.

They have been mostly used over the years to take action where rented properties have issues such as damp and mould, pest infestations and electrical issues. In the post-Grenfell building and fire safety landscape, we are increasingly seeing these powers used to try to accelerate and compel the remediation of buildings with historic fire safety defects.

When it becomes apparent that a residential property is ‘hazardous’, an improvement notice can be served, requiring that remedial action be taken within a specified time period. The notice can be issued whether the hazard is serious (a ‘category 1 hazard’) or less serious (a ‘category 2 hazard’) according to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).

Who can serve an improvement notice?

The decision over whether to serve an improvement notice and, if so, the scope of the required remedial works is vested in the local housing authority. They are the only ones empowered to take enforcement action via the use of improvement notices.

Local housing authorities must keep the housing conditions in their area under review, with the intention of identifying any necessary enforcement action. Increasing political pressure (and government funding to assist) has led to local housing authorities reviewing higher-risk buildings to ensure that appropriate remedial works are being carried out, and that those works are happening quickly enough.

The local authority must revoke the notice when it is satisfied that its requirements have been complied with. They also have the flexibility to vary a notice’s requirements by agreement with the recipient, or to revoke only part of the notice when, for example, multiple hazards were listed in the notice but only a certain number have been rectified.

Who can be served with an improvement notice?

The local housing authority will serve the improvement notice on the owner and/or manager of the relevant property. Importantly in the context of building safety, a developer who is no longer the owner of a building cannot be served with an improvement notice. Further, an improvement notice can be served on the owner, even if all repairing obligations lie with a manager.

A person who receives an improvement notice should check the notice has been validly made by the local authority (as per section 13 of the Housing Act 2004) before taking decisive action as appropriate. The notice must, for example, specify whether it is made in respect of category 1 or category 2 hazards, as well as what action must be taken to address the hazards and by when.

It is possible for the recipient to appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to challenge the making of the notice, but this must be submitted within 21 days starting from the day the notice was received. Unless it can be guaranteed that the notice will be complied with within the relevant timeframes, it is sensible to lodge a protective appeal while the notice is fully considered.

Improvement notices must be complied with by the recipient building owner/manager, potentially leading to a civil penalty or criminal sanctions if they fail to do so.

Landlords may also be subject to a banning order for failure to comply with a notice. Time limits in an improvement notice are to be respected. In Newham v Chaplair, the recipient of the notice (Chaplair) was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay the local authority’s costs because it failed to remedy unsafe cladding by the requisite deadline. It is also important to note that improvement notices persist even when the property changes hands. If the property owner or manager is replaced after the notice has been served, that new person is liable under the notice as if it was originally served on them, and there is no automatic extension of the time limit for compliance.

What is their relevance to the new building safety landscape?

Improvement notices are a powerful tool for compelling building owners to remediate buildings deemed unsafe due to cladding or other building safety defects. They may well become more prevalent in the future, as a result of the government’s drive to increase the speed of remediation works.

However, there is some tension between improvement notices and other aspects of the wider building safety regime. It is building owners who have to deal with improvement notices – and the criminal sanctions for failure to comply – even where they were not responsible for the building defects and where a developer may already have agreed to complete remedial works under the Government’s Self Remediation Contract (SRC).

Across the country many property owners are in productive partnerships with developers who have signed up to the SRC. However, local authorities continue to identify and deploy improvement notices in relation to properties’ hazards – fire-related or otherwise. Some property owners therefore find themselves caught between two regimes, on the one hand, being served with an improvement notice by the local authority requiring works to the old HHSRS standard, and on the other, working with a developer to the new PAS 9980 standard, which is relevant to works undertaken pursuant to the SRC. The question of what happens when these two regimes meet has not received much judicial consideration.

However, in the recent case of Raingate v London Borough of Camden, (LON/00AG/HIN/2022/0019) Raingate (a freeholder) was served with an improvement notice by Camden in relation to potentially unsafe ACM cladding that was present in one of its properties. Raingate appealed the notice and ultimately the notice was varied. What is significant, however, is that Camden’s notice required Raingate to either remove the unsafe cladding, or alternatively, to commission further expert fire safety reports in accordance with the PAS 9980 standard. It remains to be seen whether other local authorities will also adopt this standard, but this is at least one example of the two building safety regimes working together.

The interaction between improvement notices, remediation orders and remediation contribution orders was highlighted in the Empire Square case (LON/00BE/HYI/2023/0013 and LON/00BE/BSB/2024/0602), discussed further in previous articles in this series.

This article was originally published in the Estates Gazette in July 2025.