Defective Premises Act (Northern Ireland) 2024: your duty to build and work on dwellings properly, with a 15-year claim period
What builders, developers and contractors in Northern Ireland owe to home buyers and owners under the Defective Premises (Northern Ireland) Order 1975, as amended by the Defective Premises Act (Northern Ireland) 2024, including the new duty for work to existing dwellings and the longer 15-year and 30-year claim periods.
In Northern Ireland, a person who takes on work to provide a home owes a legal duty to do it properly. Since 21 September 2024, a business that takes on work to an existing home owes the same duty, and the people who can sue for defects have much longer to do so than before. The Defective Premises Act (Northern Ireland) 2024 came into operation on 21 September 2024, the day after Royal Assent. It amends the Defective Premises (Northern Ireland) Order 1975 in three ways: it adds a new Article 4A for work to existing dwellings, it extends the time limit for claims to 15 years, and it moves responsibility for the Order to the Department for Communities.
There is no licence or registration and no regulator fine. The duty is a civil duty enforced by the courts, which is why the practical steps below are about records, contracts and insurance rather than an application.
- Duty for new homes
- Workmanlike or professional work with proper materials (Article 3)
- Duty for work to existing dwellings (new)
- Business work to any part of a building containing dwellings (Article 4A)
- Following instructions
- Met for work done properly to the client's instructions, unless a duty to warn was not met (Article 4A(4))
- Arranging others
- A business that arranges the work is treated as having taken it on (Article 4A(6))
- New limitation period
- 15 years from the date the right of action accrued (section 2)
- When the clock starts
- When the work is completed, or, where further rectifying work is done, when that further work is finished
- Retrospective effect
- 30 years for Article 3 claims accrued before 21 September 2024 (section 2)
- Applies to work completed
- The new Article 4A duty applies in relation to work completed after 21 September 2024 (section 1(2))
- Responsible department
- Department for Communities (section 3)
- Enforced by
- The courts, on claims by the client or later owners; no regulator or fixed penalty
Article 3 of the 1975 Order owes the duty to the person who ordered the dwelling and to everyone who acquires an estate in it. The work must be done in a workmanlike or, as the case may be, professional manner, with proper materials, so that the dwelling is fit for habitation when completed.
Article 4A, inserted by section 1 of the 2024 Act, applies where a person, in the course of a business, takes on work to any part of a building containing one or more dwellings. The same standard applies to that work, and it is owed to the person for whom the work is done and to each person who holds or acquires an interest (legal or equitable) in a dwelling in the building. It does not apply to work for or in connection with the provision of a dwelling, which Article 3 covers, or where the dwelling will cease to exist.
A person who does work in accordance with the client's instructions is treated as meeting the duty only to the extent that they do it properly to those instructions. That protection is lost if they had a duty to warn of defects in the instructions and failed to do so (Article 4A(4)).
The 15-year limit comes from section 2, which inserts Article 8A into the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989. It covers actions under Article 3 or Article 4A of the 1975 Order, and under Article 20 of the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) Order 1979. The 30-year period for earlier Article 3 claims does not reopen claims settled by agreement or finally determined before the Act (section 2).
What you must do
- Assume a 15-year exposure for every dwelling you build or work on in Northern Ireland, starting from completion. Keep your records for at least that long and treat any rectifying work as restarting the clock for that work.
- Keep evidence of workmanship and materials. The duty is to use proper materials and proper workmanship, so keep specifications, inspection and commissioning records, supplier certificates and building control completion documents for each dwelling.
- Put client instructions in writing. You are treated as discharging the duty for work done properly in accordance with the instructions, unless you owed a duty to warn of defects in them. Record any warnings you gave.
- Extend the same discipline to renovation and refurbishment work on existing homes and to flats in converted buildings. Article 4A now covers them.
- Review your insurance and contracts with your adviser. Claims under Article 3 and Article 4A can now be brought up to 15 years after the right of action accrued, and later owners can bring them as well as the original client.
If you need the exact wording of Article 3, read the Defective Premises (Northern Ireland) Order 1975 on legislation.gov.uk.