Building Safety Hub
Supporting building and fire safety excellence in tall residential buildings in England
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On 23 November 2023, DLUHC announced that deadline for applications to the Waking Watch Replacement Fund were extended to midnight 31 March 2024.
The purpose of the fund is to help leaseholders by covering the cost of installing a common alarm system in accordance with the recommendations of BS 5839-1 for a Category L5 system, on a building of any size, where a waking watch is in place.
This fund was designed to build on the original £35M Waking Watch Relief Fund (WWRF) that was brought into place for high rise buildings above 17.7m in height, due to unsafe cladding.
Read more about the Waking Watch Replacement Fund here.
- Building Safety Act
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A recent FTT case has highlighted the consequences for a landlord where they fail to produce the landlord’s certificate. We are grateful to Cassandra Zanelli of Property Management Legal Services for the information provided.
Access the case here.
- Building Safety Act
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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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A government pledge signed by five insurance brokers will stop the sharing of commissions with parties who place or arrange buildings insurance for blocks with identified fire safety issues that are over 11 metres or four storeys.
The pledge also introduces a cap of 15% on the premium that brokers take to compensate for their work in arranging the insurance. A recent Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) report on broker remuneration found that this amount can be as high as 60% of the cost of the premium paid by leaseholders.
To read more, click here.
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Today (26th October 2023), the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill received Royal Assent.
The measures in the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act will support communities and local authorities to transform their local areas, complementing government investment in projects that will help regenerate left behind areas, and seeks to speed up the planning system, hold developers to account, cut bureaucracy, and encourage more councils to put in place plans to enable the building of new homes.
The Act also contains two amendment to the Building Safety Act, under the Leaseholder Protections legislation, dealing with circumstances where leaseholders may partly-own other properties, and for leaseholder who have extended their lease and no longer satisfying the criteria for a qualifying lease at the qualifying time (before 14th February 2022). The Lords amendments put forward are:
- Lords Amendment to insert a new clause after Clause 214: Nonqualifying leases under the Building Safety Act 2022
Amendment 242 seeks to secure parity between qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders
under the Building Safety Act 2022, extending protection to three properties for all
leaseholders and excluding from the calculation of the number of properties those where 50%
or less is owned by an individual.
Lords Amendment to insert a new clause after Clause 214: Qualifying leases under the Building Safety Act 2022
Amendment 243 seeks to address the issue whereby a lease which qualifies for the
leaseholder protections under the Building Safety Act 2022 ceases to qualify where it is
‘extended’ (because a ‘lease extension’ is actually a surrender of the existing lease and the
grant of a new one) or, in certain cases, varied. The new section is intended to apply to a
qualifying lease whenever the variation, surrender or regrant occurred and notwithstanding
any agreement that would disapply the section to a particular qualifying lease.
- Building Safety Act
- Lords Amendment to insert a new clause after Clause 214: Nonqualifying leases under the Building Safety Act 2022