Contentious Cladding
The issue of unsafe cladding has recently been thrust back into public debate with the recent unveiling of the Governments plan on remediation costs and help for leaseholders in dealing with problem cladding. The Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government last week announced a series of measures aimed at addressing both public and industry concerns.
The statement included provision that the government will meet the cost of removal of unsafe cladding on leaseholder’s behalf on all buildings over 18 metres tall, financial measures for leaseholders in buildings between 11 and 18 metres tall, imposing a limit of £50 per month as the most they can be required to pay to remove any unsafe cladding on their building, an industry levy to ensure contributions by developers and a new safety regime.
The details are still awaited so what this will look like to leaseholders and practitioners remains. However, the measures have already faced significant criticism for not providing adequate help to leaseholders in buildings below 18m tall who will still have to pay have dangerous materials removed from their buildings. That it is unfair that leaseholders should have to pay to remedy a problem not of their creation but that without a solution exposes them to higher on-going service charge costs (often in the form of increased safety measures in their buildings whilst the problem remains unresolved) and potential issues with financing and selling their properties has found vocal crossparty political support.
As of last week, an attempt by a number of MP’s to amend the Fire Safety Bill, including measures to ban freeholders passing on the cost of fire safety improvements to leaseholders, was defeated and the bill has now passed to the House of Lords. A further bill, the Building Safety Bill, will be introduced later in the spring which is suggested will contain ‘detailed and complex’ measures on payments to leaseholders although no details have yet been produced.
Some three and a half years since the fire at Grenfell Tower, this is at last a welcome start at addressing a large scale problem that blights the lives of those affected but it would seem there is more work to be done to find a solution which satisfies all those affected by this issue.