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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of non-qualifying leaseholder status on the ability of impacted leaseholders to sell their properties in buildings that have undergone remediation under the Building Safety Act 2022.

If the non-qualifying lease status automatically disappeared at the point of sale, it would mean that the original holders of non-qualifying leases could effectively pass the additional costs of remediation onto freeholders, which would not align with the intentions of the legislation. That is to ensure defective buildings are fixed and not left in a perpetually dangerous state by carefully balancing the rights of leaseholders with those of those freeholders not connected with the developer who were equally innocent in the creation of the emerging defects.

As I said in a recent Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee meeting on this topic, that we are looking very closely at what can be done to sunset the “in perpetuity” status of leases which do not qualify for the leaseholder protections.

Ten major banks and building societies (mortgage lenders) have signed a public statement on cladding confirming lenders will consider mortgage applications if the building has funding for remediation works from government or the developer, regardless of the qualifying status of the leaseholder. Buildings which have undergone remediation should be subject to standard lending criteria.