Finally…Good News for Leaseholders

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, has publicly warned developers that they must pay to fix the cladding crisis that they caused but not only that; he has given them a timeline to set out how they are going to do it.

After the awful tragedy of Grenfell Tower back in 2017, there have been calls for the cladding on buildings (mainly residential apartment blocks) with cladding to be assessed for safety and replaced.

Not only has this led to people living in the buildings feeling unsafe, but many have been trapped with property that they cannot sell and re-mortgage. Even the properties deemed to be safe, lenders have been reluctant to lend on them.

The government did try and previously help to rectify the issue with the ESW1 certificate; however, they became costly with a limited amount qualified surveyors to carry them out. The requirement for the ESW1 Certificate soon became a nightmare rather than a solution for thousands of buyers and sellers, causing months of delays to property transactions.

This weeks news that Michael Gove has given developers until Early March to agree a fully funded plan of action including remediating unsafe cladding on 11-18 meter buildings and that he has pledged that the developers ‘who caused this crisis’ would pay and not leaseholders, has been welcomed by many but rightly so, given the history of the issue, leaseholders still have their reservations.

The four main points to be taken from the announcement are:

• The opening of the next stage of the Building Safety Fund
• Developers to pay, as they are at fault
• Withdrawing previous government advice that has caused many buildings to unnecessarily to be declared unsafe
• New protections for Leaseholders, with no costs passed onto them to fix any unsafe cladding.

To read the full press release by the UK Government visit this webpage

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