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Government opens £4.5bn Building Safety Fund for blocks taller than 18 metres
A new Building Safety Fund worth £4.5bn has been reopened to applications from leaseholders caught up in the cladding scandal.
Unveiled by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) today, the fund is once again open for applications for buildings that are taller than 18 metres with cladding issues, as part of a wider move to make homes safer.
For blocks between 11 and 18 metres where the original developer or building owner cannot be identified or held responsible, the government said an additional scheme would be launched soon, with details published “in due course”.
It comes amid concerns over delays to the government’s existing Building Safety Fund, which was launched in March 2020 with a budget of £1bn. Two years on since the fund’s launch, many qualifying leaseholders are still waiting for payment.
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As of last month, only 199 buildings had seen work paid for under the scheme begin, out of a total of 3,212 blocks that registered. Only 41 buildings had seen work completed.
The new funding pot was announced alongside measures to provide leaseholders with better information around building safety requirements, following existing debate over who is responsible for meeting the cost of new fire safety standards in multiple occupancy buildings.
A new online ‘leaseholder protections checker’ tool set up by the DLUHC aims to support leaseholders in understanding whether they qualify for financial protections under the Building Safety Act.
The protections prevent qualifying leaseholders from paying the majority of costs to fix fire safety defects, such as the removal of unsafe cladding materials, while putting greater emphasis on the responsibility of building owners.
Any landlord found to be invoicing qualifying leaseholders for work to fix historical building safety defects could now face criminal action, unless they can prove they are legally entitled to recover these costs.
The latest fund is part of a wave of new measures brought in this year to try and protect leaseholders from crippling fire safety remediation bills.
Last month, former housing secretary Michael Gove introduced new measures that could see freeholders and managing agents face prison terms if they charge leaseholders for full fire safety costs.
Announcing the relaunch of the fund, new housing secretary Greg Clark said: “We must make homes safe. The relaunch of the Building Safety Fund today will help achieve this, but we must also ensure those in industry who acted irresponsibly pay their fair share to put things right.”
“The Building Safety Act makes clear building owners’ liabilities and gives us powers to pursue those that continue to flout the rules,” he added.
“It has also introduced far-reaching legal protections to relieve many leaseholders from the financial burden of fixing their homes. With these now fully up and running, I urge any homeowners who may qualify to see if they are eligible using our online leaseholder protections checker as soon as possible.”
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