Under consideration PE2294: Amend the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 to enforce strict developer liability for defective homes
Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 to introduce strict legal and financial liability for developers who breach approved Building Warrants, grant local authorities robust post-completion enforcement powers against developers, and remove the legal immunity of verifiers who accept Completion Certificates for structurally defective homes, ensuring the burden of compliance never falls on innocent homebuyers.
Background information
The Building (Scotland) Act 2003 traps homebuyers in a toxic blame game where regulatory oversight completely collapses. When severe structural non-compliances are exposed in new-builds, governing bodies simply blame each other. Warranty providers hide behind the council's flawed Completion Certificate, while councils claim the 2003 Act gives them zero post-completion powers to penalise developers
The most dangerous loophole is that as long as a developer simply promises to "fix it," all regulatory bodies step back and refuse to intervene. Because there are no statutory time limits, developers can take as long as they want. They use delay tactics—over 9 months in some cases—while families are forced to live in hazardous, half-finished disaster zones instead of the safe places meant to be their homes
Parliament must amend the Act to introduce strict statutory repair timeframes, enforce developer liability, and stop oversight bodies from abandoning victims to multi-billion-pound builders
7 signatures