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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2022 to Question 105741 on High Rise Flats: Fire Prevention, what progress he has made across Government to protect leaseholders from the risk of forfeiture result from non-payment of historic building safety remediation costs.

We are clear that building owners and industry should make buildings safe without passing on costs to leaseholders, and leaseholders living in their own medium and high-rise buildings should not have to pay to remediate historic cladding defects that are no fault of their own. That is why we are bringing forth statutory protections in the Building Safety Bill to ensure leaseholders are protected. This will have the effect of removing the threat of forfeiture for non-payment of these charges as they will no longer be payable or enforceable.

It is absolutely wrong that any leaseholder is threatened with forfeiture linked to these remediation costs before the protections we are putting into law come into force. My department has written to developers to ensure they are not pursuing forfeiture during this interim period. Leaseholders who receive a bill for historic cladding remediation costs can contact the Leasehold Advisory Service.