Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of assistance available to people with EWS1 forms deemed to be invalid and unacceptable by mortgage lenders.

Officials in my department have regular engagement with financial sector stakeholders. A product of this is the lenders’ statement on cladding which has signatories from ten major banks and building societies.

These lenders have committed to consider mortgage applications, even if a property has building safety issues, provided either the building has funding for works from government or the developer, or the property is protected by the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act, and the leaseholder has completed a ‘Leaseholder Deed of Certificate’ to evidence it.

The statement was further updated in April last year to confirm that even where an EWS1 has, what they consider to be, an invalid signatory, lenders will not require a wholesale review of affected EWS1s. Lenders will consider alternative evidence, for example: that a building is in a remediation scheme, a Leaseholder Deed of Certificate has been completed or a Fire Risk Appraisal of the External Wall (FRAEW) has been undertaken.

An EWS1 form is not a government, legal or regulatory requirement. Not all lenders ask for an EWS1, but whether they do, remains a commercial decision.