Defective Premises Act (Northern Ireland) 2024

Duties relating to work to dwellings

1.—(1) In the Defective Premises (Northern Ireland) Order 1975 after Article 4 insert—

“Duties relating to work to dwellings

4A.— (1) This Article applies where a person, in the course of a business, takes on work in relation to any part of a building consisting of or containing one or more dwellings.

(2) The person owes a duty to—

(a) the person for whom the work is done, and

(b) each person who holds or acquires an interest (whether legal or equitable) in a dwelling in the building,

to see that the work is done in a workmanlike or (as the case may be) professional manner, with proper materials and so that as regards the work the dwelling is fit for habitation when the work is completed.

(3) The duty under this Article does not apply in relation to a dwelling if—

(a) the work taken on is work for or in connection with the provision of the dwelling (as to which see Article 3), or

(b) it is expected that, on completion of the work, it will have ceased to be a dwelling or will otherwise have ceased to exist.

(4) A person (A) who takes on any work to which this Article applies for another (B) on terms that A is to do it in accordance with instructions given by or on behalf of B is, to the extent to which A does it properly in accordance with those instructions, to be treated for the purposes of this Article as discharging the duty imposed on A by this Article except where A owes a duty to B to warn B of any defects in the instructions and fails to discharge that duty.

(5) A person is not treated for the purposes of paragraph (4) as having given instructions for the doing of work merely because the person has agreed to the work being done in a specified manner, with specified materials or to a specified design.

(6) A person who, in the course of a business which consists of or includes carrying out or arranging for the carrying out of work of a kind mentioned in paragraph (1), arranges for another to take on work of that kind is treated for the purposes of this Article as included among the persons who have taken on the work.

(7) For the purposes of the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, a cause of action in respect of a breach of a duty imposed by this Article is treated as accruing at the time the work is completed; but if after that time a person does further work to rectify the work the person has already done, any such cause of action in respect of that further work is treated as accruing at the time when the further work is finished.”.

(2) The amendment made by this section applies in relation to work completed after the coming into operation of this section.