With the Building Safety Bill due to become law in the coming weeks, and with all leaseholders still not fully protected, we have written to the Chancellor to ask him to agree to the Government replacing leaseholders as the final stage of the waterfall and to provide up-front funding wherever it is required.
Our view is that this is the only way to provide true certainty to leaseholders and the housing market. Read our letter here.
We’re pleased to announce that the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign has been Highly Commended in the Your UK Parliament Awards.
Continue reading “Your UK Parliament Awards 2022”
It is nearly five years since the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry has shown how the Civil Service and ex-Ministers failed to act on repeated warnings, largely due to the deregulatory landscape.
Continue reading “Why we need better protection in the Building Safety Bill”
On 31 March 2022, the lending and valuation industries published a joint statement on cladding to clarify the current lending position for properties where the EWS1 form or equivalent assessment recommends remediation (A3 or B2 rating).
Continue reading “Our statement on lending and valuation industries’ “Joint Statement on Cladding” announcement”
On 11th March 2022 the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee published the “Building Safety: Remediation and Funding” report. This is a House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.
We welcome this important report, and we thank members of the Select Committee for their dedication to ensure there is justice for all innocent victims of this crisis. We echo the strong words of Chair Clive Betts – it truly is shameful that this situation is yet to be properly resolved.
Continue reading “Our statement on LUHC Select Committee’s Building Safety: Remediation and Funding report”
We responded to the recent LUHC Select Committee’s Inquiry on Building Safety: Remediation and Funding.
You can read our full written submission here, including our “asks”.
Our Asks:
Successive governments (and the same civil servants in charge of building regulations) have allowed the UK’s regulatory system to remain inadequate, weak, and gameable despite repeated warnings over the decades including reports after fires.
Continue reading “Our Submission to LUHC Inquiry on Building Safety”In the light of significant and recurring concerns leaseholders were raising about housing associations, we conducted a survey in November 2021 to gather data and document the nature and scope of those concerns. The resulting report, published today, shines a light on leaseholders’ experience and highlights systemic issues that need to be urgently addressed.
Continue reading “Dereliction of Duty – Our new report shows housing associations have failed leaseholders”
Today’s announcement is the most positive step forward we have yet seen in the building safety crisis. Finally, nearly five long years after the Grenfell tragedy, the penny seems to have dropped with the government that leaseholders are the innocent party and that the polluters who caused this crisis must be the ones to pay to fix it.
Continue reading “Proposed Amendments to the Building Safety Bill”
For years leaseholders have been facing issues with the opaque residential building insurance regime – whether the cartel-like behaviour of the insurers, clear conflicts of interest and secretive commission arrangements between freeholders, brokers, managing agents and insurers or the simple fact that we have no ability to influence the selection of the insurer and no redress once exorbitant premiums are forced onto us.
Continue reading “Relief from exorbitant insurance costs needed urgently”
We welcome the news that there will be an additional £27m to fund alarms in buildings where a Waking Watch is in place, and that funding is finally to be extended to help innocent leaseholders in buildings below 18m and with non-cladding defects.
Continue reading “Additional £27m to fund alarms in buildings with Waking Watch”
