Building Remediation
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The Property Institute was one of a number of stakeholders who flagged what appeared to be a rather obvious error with section 119 of the Building Safety Act 2022. As agents will know, where a lease is extended, by operation of law the original lease is surrendered and a new lease is then granted. The original drafting of section 119 explained that a qualifying lease had to be held at the qualifying time, i.e. 14th February 2022. This meant that if a qualifying leaseholder extended their lease, that they surrendered their existing lease and were granted a new lease. As the new lease will not have been granted before 14 February 2022, the statutory leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act 2022 could not apply.
DLUHC proceeded to update their guidance, indicating that they were “..looking to legislate to resolve this issue as soon as Parliamentary time allows”. We now have the legislation in the form of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which received Royal Assent on 26th October.
Section 243 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 inserts a new section 119A into the Building Safety Act. It introduces the concept of a “connected replacement lease”. A connected replacement lease will also be a qualifying lease where the new lease replaces a qualifying lease.
This new provision will have retrospective effect. This means that any losses of qualifying status will be reversed.
The new provision will come into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which the Act is passed (i.e. 26th December 2023).
- Building Remediation
- Leaseholder Protections
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Homes England has updated its guidance on the Cladding Safety Scheme.
The Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) was formally announced under the previous name - Medium Rise Scheme (MRS) in November 2022. The CSS will meet the cost of addressing life safety fire risks associated with cladding on residential buildings over 11m in height (11-18m in London). The GLA will continue to operate the Building Safety Fund for buildings over 18m in height in the Greater London Area.
The new scheme guidance includes:
- Driving the pace of remediation and enforcement
- Developer Pledge
- Consideration of leaseholders and residents throughout the remediation works
- Keeping leaseholders and residents informed
- Fund structure and administration
- The Building Safety Act
- Eligibility: Who can make an application to the CSS?
- Eligibility: Summary
- Social sector applicants
- Social sector applicants: Financial viability applications
- Eligibility: Type of building
- Eligibility: Building height
- Financial support available
- What we will fund
- What we will not fund
- Proportionality and the introduction of PAS 9980:2022
- Cost recovery
- Building Remediation
- Cladding Safety Scheme (11m-18m)
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On 3 July 2023, regulations to establish a Responsible Actors Scheme (RAS) for residential developers under sections 126-129 of the Building Safety Act 2022 were signed into law. On 21 July 2023, government launched the Responsible Actors Scheme.
The Scheme will recognise action taken by responsible developers to identify and remediate or pay to remediate life-critical fire safety defects in residential buildings 11 metres or over in height which they developed or refurbished in England over the 30 years to 4 April 2022.
Developers who are likely to be eligible to join the Scheme will receive an invitation from the Secretary of State. In order to join the Scheme, eligible developers will need to respond to the invitation, apply for membership and enter into the developer remediation contract.
Those who successfully sign up to the Scheme will have their names added to the Responsible Actors Scheme members list.
As of 21 September 2023, 37 developers have joined the Scheme.
The developers who have joined the Responsible Actors Scheme have collectively committed to remediating over 1,100 buildings, equating to over 75,000 homes, at a cost to themselves of over £2 billion.
Read the latest guidance, enrolment details and regulations here
- Building Remediation
- Responsible Actors Scheme
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This guidance provides stakeholders with a plain-English explanation of the implications of the latest leaseholder protections amendments in the Building Safety Act 2022.
Introduction
1. Since the leaseholder protections came into force in the summer of 2022, DLUHC has engaged extensively with leaseholders, landlords and others affected, such as lenders and conveyancers, to monitor compliance with, and the operation of, the Building Safety Act (the Act) and the leaseholder protections.2. The Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections etc.) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/895) (referred to in this guidance as “the amending regulations”) make amendments to The Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/711) and The Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/859) to ensure they have effect in the way originally intended.
3. The amending regulations are an important step in improving the implementation of the leaseholder protections and provide further detail.
Click here to read the full guidance.
- Building Remediation
- Leaseholder Protections
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In accordance with the Fire Safety Act 2021, any multi-occupancy residential building’s fire risk assessment must comment on the external walls and advise whether a fire risk appraisal of the external walls (FRAEW) is recommended. In a time of austerity and new regulations that have not been budgeted for, this extra outlay is not desirable. But is there any way to avoid it, legally and safely, or is the sometimes-costly external wall appraisal always required? According to façade and internal fire-safety experts FR Consultants Ltd, while the majority of in-scope buildings will always require a PAS 9980 FRAEW, there are a few select situations where they can be omitted.
It is important to understand that a full FRAEW does form a key part of the requirements for the following regulations and processes:
- structure, external walls and flat entrance doors fall within the scope of the Fire Safety Order, and the Fire Safety Act 2021 requires that these elements be included in all fire risk assessments
- the golden thread of information, the model of gathering, storing and maintaining the key information of a building’s life cycle under the Building Safety Act 2022
- as part of the information on the design and materials of the external wall system and level of risk that must be provided to the local fire and rescue service under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
- an EWS1 assessment certificate, also known as the External Wall System Fire Review certificate, is a requirement for any leaseholder buying, selling or remortgaging an apartment in a multistorey, multi-occupied residential building
- applications for the Building Safety Fund and Cladding Safety Scheme, the multi-billion-pound funds for addressing life-safety fire risks associated with cladding on mid-rise and high-rise residential buildings
- for insurance purposes, having a FRAEW has proven beneficial in reducing renewal premiums owing to the risk reduction.
In all these situations, there is no question that a FRAEW is required.
The requirement for a FRAEW is determined within the fire risk assessment, which must consider the external walls and any attachments. This includes cladding, balconies and any additional external structures, the purpose being to assess the risk to occupants from a fire spreading over or within the external walls of the building and to decide whether remediation to address the risk is considered necessary on a particular building. In some cases, owing to an isolated location or limited extent of the system, the external walls may not be considered at risk, and therefore a PAS 9980 FRAEW will not be required.
- Fire Safety