UK Construction and Law
A remediation order is not varied just because the deadline was missed, and the tribunal has pointed the parties to the courts instead
By Staff Writer | 29 August 2026
Balcony works ordered under the Building Safety Act 2022 were due by 29 May 2026 and none had been carried out. The management company asked for more time and was refused. Nineteen months after the order the tribunal said it had no confidence the applicant could deliver the works, and left enforcement to the courts.
The First-tier Tribunal made a remediation order over a converted mill in Brighouse on 4 November 2024. It specified fire safety works to the existing balconies, which are built with timber elements to the decking floor and with balustrades that do not achieve an acceptable European fire classification. The works were to be completed by 29 May 2026.
On 1 June 2026 the management company, through its managing agent, asked for a 28 day stay pending delivery of a proposed programme of works. The tribunal took the view that a short stay would serve no purpose, because it was clear the works could not be completed within 28 days or for a good while afterwards, and treated the request as an application to vary the order for an unspecified extension of time. Directions were issued for a hearing, with written submissions and a bundle due 14 days beforehand and permission to adduce expert evidence given to both sides.
Nothing was filed until the morning of the hearing
The leaseholder respondent complied with the directions and filed submissions and an indexed bundle. The applicant filed nothing until after midnight on the morning of the hearing, when it served a witness statement from the managing agent running to 58 pages. It had not responded to a separate application by the respondent asking the tribunal to confirm that whoever attended had authority to act, and counsel for the applicant confirmed he had been instructed only days before. Separate court proceedings are running about who the directors of the management company actually are.
The tribunal refused to admit the late statement. Expecting a litigant in person to answer 58 pages on the day with no notice was unreasonable and would have placed her at a considerable disadvantage. The statement was in any event of limited assistance, because it offered an account of the delays and a presentation of the proposed works without expert evidence or clear supporting documents on funding approval, confirmed programme or design and construction contracts.
The Tribunal expressed its concern regarding the lack of respect that the Applicant has shown the Remediation Order, these proceedings and the Tribunal, especially given the seriousness of these fire safety issues.
Regional Judge N A Walsh, First-tier Tribunal, Property Chamber
Missing the date does not buy a new one
On the merits the tribunal found that the applicant had not prosecuted its own application. It had not explained why the works had not progressed, had not produced a coherent and evidenced plan supported by expert or documentary material, and had not complied with the requirement in the order itself that any variation application be supported by a witness statement with detailed evidence and a draft order. The tribunal held that it had no confidence the applicant was in a position to deliver the works within a reasonable timescale, and refused the application. Its reasoning on the general point is short and will be quoted for some time: just because a remediation order has not been complied with by a certain date it does not automatically follow that a tribunal must vary the order and apply new timelines.
The tribunal also drew on the managing agent's earlier witness statement in the 2024 proceedings, in which he had asked for those proceedings to be stayed so that matters could be progressed under grant funder supervision alone, and treated that as symptomatic of a wish to avoid tribunal oversight.
Where it goes next
Having refused to vary, the tribunal said the appropriate route now is for the courts to use their enforcement powers, if a suitable party applies, most likely after a declaration resolving the dispute about who the directors are. That leaves the leaseholders with an order that stands, a deadline that has passed and no works on site. For anyone advising a responsible landlord under a remediation order, the practical reading is that the order is not a target date to be renegotiated when it slips. If more time is genuinely needed, the application has to arrive early, in the form the order requires, with funding, programme and contracts evidenced.