The Society of Licensed Conveyancers (SLC) is concerned over the growing costs of replacement cladding and waking watches which is likely to bankrupt many thousands of leaseholders. The government has repeatedly stated that building owners should pay, but so far there are no signs that they will.

John Clay, SLC board member that leads for the SLC on leasehold issues, said: “The government must step in now.

“The consequences of not doing so will create a major problem in the housing market with thousands of first time buyers being deprived of properties to buy as there are so many flats now unsaleable, and the current owners unable to move up the housing ladder.

“The Fire Safety Bill is coming close to its final stages but if it is passed in its current form it will make matters worse firmly placing responsibility for costs with the “building owner” which is absolute nonsense.”

The SLC has written to Robert Jenrick, secretary of state at MHCLG, setting out in more detail the
Society’s concerns and why Government intervention is necessary.

Meanwhile, according to analysis by cladding remediation specialists Cladding Consulting, leaseholders could miss out on billions of pounds of funding to remove unsafe non-ACM cladding.

New figures reveal less than a quarter (22%) of applications to the Building Safety Fund (BSF) are currently proceeding to funding.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communiities and Local Government (MHCLG) show that just 624 out of a total of 2,820 registrations to the BSF, have been assessed as eligible to proceed with an application for funding.

And with the deadline to submit eligible applications for funding the end of June 2021 – which is just over three months away – thousands of leaseholders are in danger of missing out on funding, and could be forced to pay for the cladding remediation works themselves.

Additionally, the updated MHCLG figures also reveal that 891 registrations to the Building Safety Fund have not even progressed beyond the ‘registration of interest’ stage.

The £4.5bn Building Safety Fund (BSF) has been set up by the government to pay for the removal of non-ACM cladding from high-rise buildings 18m or above.

Steven Truman, managing director of Cladding Consulting, commented: “It’s worrying that with just over three months to go before the deadline for completed BSF applications passes, less than a quarter of registrations are currently proceeding, while a third of applications haven’t even submitted information to assess eligibility for funding.

“Thousands of leaseholders could miss out on billions of pounds of life-changing funding to remove unsafe cladding from their buildings, and will be forced to dig into their own pockets to pay for the remediation work.

“The government needs to address this problem urgently. The entire BSF application process is proving too complicated and time-consuming for leaseholders, and it’s hard to see how many applications will meet the deadline if more support is not provided.”