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 ensure that commercial leaseholders pay their share of the costs of remediation works on buildings for which they hold a commercial lease.

The Building Safety Act 2022 protects leaseholders in buildings above 11 metres in height or with at least five storeys from costs associated with historical building safety defects. A leaseholder qualifies for the protections if, on 14 February 2022, the property was their principal home, or if they owned no more than three UK properties in total. The protections automatically transfer to future buyers if a lease is sold.

Those responsible for historical building safety defects must pay to put them right. That is why, where the building is owned by the developer of the building, or the building owner is linked to the developer, then no costs related to historical defects can be passed to any leaseholders; including commercial leaseholders. If the building owner is not linked to the developer, commercial leaseholders can be charged for their full share of remediation works, as per the terms of their lease.

Qualifying leaseholders will be fully protected in law from cladding costs. In addition, the costs for remediation of non-cladding defects and interim measures like waking watches are subject to a firm cap. Once the leaseholder caps have been reached, landlords will be unable to demand further contributions from leaseholders. Landlords will be required to provide detailed evidence to leaseholders that they are entitled to pass on costs. The Government is clear that landlords who attempt to continue charging leaseholders once the caps have been met will be breaking the law and we will not hesitate to use all possible levers to hold rogue actors to account.

The Government has agreed with 45 residential property developers that they will fix life-critical fire safety defects, including cladding, in all buildings above 11 metres that they had a role in developing or refurbishing in the past 30 years. Where a responsible developer cannot be identified, grant funding from either the Building Safety Fund or the new 11-18 metre remediation fund will cover the costs of fixing unsafe cladding.