More details have been realeased by the government regarding how they plan to help more than 500,000 leaseholders currently unable to sell their homes due to the cladding crisis.
Homeowners have been trapped by both the enormous remediation expenditure and surveying guidance often making it impossible for lenders to offer mortgages for these leasehold properties or remortgage them.
The Negotiator magazine reported earlier this week that Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary revealed plans enforcing developers to spend £4 billion remediating the cladding on hundreds of tower blocks over 11 metres tall.
The Government has now published proposals to remove other obstacles faced by leaseholders caught up in the crisis which include indemnifying building assessors from being sued and withdrawing previous misinterpreted government advice that prompted too many buildings being declared as unsafe – better known as the ESW1 forms.
Mr Gove stated his department wants fewer unnecessary surveys, an assumption that there is no risk to life in medium and low-rise buildings unless clear evidence of the contrary, and far greater use of sensible, risk-mitigating fire safety measures such as sprinklers and alarms.
In addition there are other reassurances which include new protections for leaseholders living in their own flats with no bills for fixing unsafe cladding and new statutory protections for leaseholders within the Building Safety Bill.
“More than four years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the system is broken,” says Gove.
“Leaseholders are trapped, unable to sell their homes and facing vast bills. From today, we are bringing this scandal to an end – protecting leaseholders and making industry pay.”
Additional measure include installing fire alarms to high-risk buildings ending the need for expensive ‘waking watches’ with greater protections overall for leaseholders in law and help for those who bought properties via a Shared Ownership scheme.