Building Safety: claims against construction product manufacturers

The next blog in our Building Safety series looks at claims against construction product manufacturers.

The Building Safety Act 2022  introduced a new cause of action  (as from 28 June 2022).  Anyone with a legal or equitable interest in any relevant building or dwelling has a cause of action against an appropriate person (usually a construction product manufacturer) if the following 4 conditions are met:

• a) a cladding or other construction product is defective, or b) the supplier or marketeer has made a misleading statement about it, or c) where the product has been applied incorrectly; and
• it is installed or applied or attached to a building (consisting of a dwelling) or to a dwelling; and
• it caused the building (consisting of a dwelling) or dwelling to be unfit for habitation; and
• a), b) or c) in bullet point one above were the cause or one of the causes of the dwelling being unfit for habitation

A construction product is defined as 'any product or kit which is produced and placed on the market for incorporation in a permanent manner in construction works or parts thereof and the performance of which has an effect on the performance of the construction works with respect ot the basic requirements for construction works'

Construction works are defined as 'buildings and civil engineering works' 

This new cause of action has extended limitation periods as follows:

•  For cladding products:
  •  30 years for claims which accrued before 28 June 2022 or if the 30 years expires within 1 year after 28 June 2022, then time expires on 27 June 2023;
  • 15 years for claims accruing after 28 June 2022
• For other construction products
  • 15 years from the date the right of action accrued

For further information see Patrick Wisheu's blog.