Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to prevent developers and freeholders from passing on cladding remediation costs to residents through increases to the service charge.

We are clear that building owners and industry should make buildings safe without passing on costs to leaseholders, and leaseholders living in their own medium and high-rise buildings should not have to pay to remediate historic cladding defects that are no fault of their own. That is why we are bringing forth statutory protections in the Building Safety Bill to ensure leaseholders are protected. Developers and freeholders should not be passing on cladding remediation costs to leaseholders in flats over 11 metres through increases to the service charge.

The Government believes very strongly that service charges should be transparent and communicated effectively. The law is clear that service charges and any increase in costs must be reasonable and, where costs relate to work or services, the work or services must be of a reasonable standard. We established an independent working group chaired by Lord Best to raise standards across the property sector, which also considered improvements to the transparency of service charges. The working group published its final report to Government (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulation-of-property-agents-working-group-report) and we are considering the report’s recommendations.