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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to require developers to undertake a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls in circumstances where the developers have failed to engage with the landlords.

The Building Safety Act protects qualifying leaseholders from the costs of professional services relating to relevant defects. This would include any Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls (FRAEW) undertaken in relation to a relevant defect, including to ascertain whether such a defect exists. Where a building is enrolled in the Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) or the Building Safety Fund (BSF), funding for an FRAEW can be provided.

Developers who sign the developer remediation contract are obliged to obtain an assessment of life-critical fire safety defects caused by the original design, construction or refurbishment of the building. Those developers must also use all reasonable endeavours to enter into a works contract with the building owner/responsible entity and agree the plan for remediation. Published data from November 2023 shows that developers have yet to obtain a Works Assessment for 1,277 (28%) of the 4,540 buildings for which they have accepted responsibility under the developer remediation contract (for reporting purposes, ‘Works Assessments’ include but are not limited to Fire Risk Appraisals of External Walls and may include other assessments e.g., Fire Risk Assessment). The Department is closely monitoring progress and holding regular discussions with developers to enforce compliance with their contractual obligations. All developers who fail to comply with their obligations face significant consequences, and members of the statutory Responsible Actors Scheme that the Government launched in July 2023 would face planning and building control prohibitions.