Thread by @nearlylegal

Digested Gove:
£4Bn for 11-18m cladding - good but relies on developers, manufacturers etc to cough up.
‘Want Developers, manufacturers etc to fund remediation of non-cladding issues’. Well. we all want that. Question is what Govt will do about it.

Will add (cross party?) amend to Building Safety Bill to ‘protect leaseholders’ from paying safety costs. This is a big one, with a lot of questions. Which costs? Arising when? (retrospective?). Seems clear will not extend to recovering payments already made by leaseholders. And

We now have a massive period of uncertainty. What happens to bills already demanded? What should leaseholders do? Wait for an unknown period to see if any amendment to the BSB would cover them?

It appears that ARMA and IRPM managing agents have been asked not to send out s.20 notices for 11-18m cladding costs - but there are, of course a lot of of other issues and demands out there.

https://twitter.com/team_greenhalgh/status/1480599708116697089

And then, of course, the big question - if leaseholders aren’t to face safety costs, how will the work be done? While an amend to the BSB may relieve immediate cost pressures on leaseholders, it will leave the ‘can’t remortgage, can’t sell’ situation in place for a

very substantial time, while everyone waits to see if the remediation costs can be arm twisted out of developers, manufacturers etc. and eventually works done. And if only cladding costs end up covered? Stalemate. No works done.

On other bits -
the extra £27 million fund for replacing waking watch - good.
PAS-9980 and a ‘proportionate approach to risk’ - heaven knows, this is a punt as to whether it will make a difference with assessors or lenders.

Indemnity for assessors - necessary but again will take time to filter through in a way that will make a difference (as qualification also a big issue).
Allowing shared owners to sub-let - will depend on arm twisting HAs (short of legislation), and

in any event, sub-letting a potential unsafe dwelling is not attractive.
Protection against eviction/forfeiture for affected leaseholders - another mystery. Would need legislation. Will this be a BSB amend too? What will it cover?

So, there is significant short term uncertainty on the exact terms of what will be added to the BSB to safeguard (or not) leaseholders, and then huge longer term uncertainty over everything else, not least the money and what it will cover.

Oh, and nearly lost in the rest - extending Defective Premises Act limitation to 30 years (rather than 6 now and proposed 15 years in BSB)? This is good but of fairly limited utility. I presume it is part of the arm twisting on developers.