Ensuring Building Safety Act compliance is crucial for building developers and operators, particularly in the Build to Rent (BTR) and purpose-built student accommodation sectors. In this talk at the Annual Rental Living Expo 25, James Cannon, Chief Revenue Officer at Zutec, explores how digitisation helps organisations simplify compliance, overcome persistent challenges, and establish a golden thread of information across their portfolios.
Watch the video or read the blog to learn how breaking down data silos and implementing structured digital processes, companies can not only meet regulatory requirements but also streamline operations and drive efficiency.
The compliance challenge in a changing landscape
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm James Cannon, Chief Revenue Officer at Zutec. It’s great to be here to discuss a topic highly relevant to anyone developing or operating in the Build to Rent sector: ensuring compliance with the Building Safety Act while managing and operating buildings efficiently.
At Zutec, we partner with Build-to-Rent (BTR) and purpose-built student (PBSA) operators, as well as housing associations, to deliver digital solutions for effective compliance. We currently have over 13,000 buildings digitised on our platform, including nearly 30% of all high-rise units in Build-to-Rent.
Through these relationships, we've developed a deep understanding of industry challenges and, most importantly, how to address them. Although significant effort has been made across the sector to meet the new regulations around the Building Safety Act (BSA), compliance challenges persist.
Our research shows that 85% of industry professionals still face difficulties complying with the Building Safety Act, citing unclear guidelines on what data is required and fragmented systems for capturing that data. 70% report that disconnected systems hinder the maintenance of a reliable golden thread. Half of those surveyed experience problems locating, storing, and updating asset information, and only 27% feel confident they have a full digital, structured data system to support compliance.
The key takeaway is that it’s not a lack of effort — it’s a lack of structured, digital-first processes that makes compliance time-consuming and inefficient.
Why digitisation matters
Simply adding more manual data entry is not the solution. Instead, structured, standardised digital processes can make compliance easier by providing complete visibility across assets, enabling missing information to be quickly identified and addressed.
Digitisation eliminates manual data tasks by automating document retrieval, tracking, and reporting. It also maintains a full digital audit trail, meaning compliance can be demonstrated instantly whenever required. Ultimately, it’s about establishing and maintaining a golden thread of critical safety information.
A step-by-step approach to compliance for asset owners
Step 1: Development and Handover
Compliance starts at development. Development teams must be accountable to operations teams by capturing complete, correct, and compliant information during construction. This can be achieved by implementing a standardised digital handover process across the business and using industry-proven templates to create consistent project documentation.
Step 2: Operational Visibility
As buildings move into operations, teams need access to live dashboards that show in real-time what information is missing, enabling proactive issue resolution and maintaining a compliant position.
Step 3: Portfolio-Wide Efficiency
To manage compliance efficiently across a portfolio, organisations should specify Zutec’s digital handover solution on all new developments to realise consistency from the outset. In addition, they can use machine learning and AI to convert legacy data into a standardised format tailored to their organisation’s needs.
Step 4: Leveraging Data Across Systems
Once a single source of truth is achieved, integrations and APIs can feed accurate data into other asset management systems, amplifying the benefits of digitisation and making ongoing compliance easier to maintain.
Quality and consistent Digital Handover information
Read the booklet and get a standardised Building Manual on every new asset every time, delivered on time and on one platform.
Why specify a Digital Handover solution?
The handover process should start before construction even begins. By defining and integrating detailed templates into contractual requirements, development teams can ensure that crucial information is captured early.
Access to live dashboards during construction allows data issues to be addressed before taking possession of the building, avoiding the common scenario of chasing missing information after project completion.
The Building Safety Act’s gateway requirements and the need to maintain updated safety cases have significantly increased the volume of information generated during construction. Using a dedicated platform like Zutec ensures that this information is captured efficiently and in line with industry best practices.
A practical, incremental path to digitisation
Rather than embarking on large-scale digital transformation projects, which are often unrealistic for BTR operators, Zutec recommends a step-by-step approach.
Introducing digital tools incrementally allows organisations to prove their value through user adoption before expanding further. Most clients begin with digitising the handover process and then move on to integrating processes such as cladding remediation, fire door audits, and risk assessments — building on the single source of truth already established.
Digitising fire door audits
Despite long-standing requirements for fire door inspections, manual processes remain common across the industry. Many organisations still rely on outdated methods, such as storing photographs on personal phones, exchanging information via email, and manually tracking large volumes of inspections in Excel spreadsheets.
These inefficient practices consume valuable time that could be better spent on more productive tasks.
Zutec’s digital fire door audit solution addresses these challenges by standardising the process from end to end. Inspectors can easily capture all inspection details using digital forms, ensuring that photographic evidence is linked directly to the relevant inspection records. Live reporting is available at the click of a button, providing instant visibility into inspection outcomes.
A full digital audit trail is created automatically, time-stamping exactly who inspected what and when. Additionally, automated alerts and reminders help ensure that key tasks are not overlooked, supporting continuous compliance with minimal manual effort.
Simplifying and streamlining compliance
With Zutec, organisations can consolidate all portfolio data into a single platform, creating one reliable source of truth. They can ensure that new developments are handed over consistently by using structured, standardised processes.
Compliance becomes much easier to manage thanks to Zutec’s clear, multi-layered dashboard reporting, which provides visibility and insight across all stakeholders. In addition, organisations can automate key tasks and processes, making it far simpler to maintain a compliant position efficiently and with minimal manual intervention.
The Zutec advantage
At Zutec, the value we bring to our customers sits inside a simple triangle. First of all, we focus solely on the residential sector. This means we have rich, sector-specific knowledge and practical know-how to guide and advise our customers in detail on how to solve these challenges.
We also believe firmly that our customers need and benefit from a lot of support throughout the process. That’s why we have invested heavily in building a large services team. Our team is on hand to assist with everything from platform setup and onboarding to data processing, data migration, training, and beyond.
Finally, there is the Zutec platform itself. It comes with a set of standardised, predefined templates designed specifically to solve the compliance challenges we have discussed and to enable a quick and efficient rollout. At the same time, the platform is flexible, allowing you to tailor those templates and processes to suit the specific needs of your business now and in the future.
If you’d like to learn more about how Zutec can help Build-to-Rent developers and operators simplify Building Safety Act compliance, visit our Build-to-Rent solutions page. To see Zutec in action, book a demo with our team today.