MPs call on government to reverse plans to force landlords to pay for cladding remediations
Cross-party MPs have criticised the government’s building safety policies as “piecemeal measures”.
A proposed cap for fixing building defects that are not cladding should be scrapped, a report from the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee has concluded today.
The report was a response to policies set out by housing secretary Michael Gove earlier this year. The minister has pledged that leaseholders in unsafe tower blocks should not have to pay for remediation works, with this responsibility instead put at the feet of developers.
However, MPs said today that the government must go further and implement a comprehensive safety fund to cover the remediation costs of all safety defects on any buildings of any height, where the so-called “polluter” cannot be traced.
Clive Betts, chair of the LUHC committee, said: “Leaseholders should not be paying a penny to rectify faults not of their doing in order to make their homes safe. Nearly five years after the tragic Grenfell fire, it is shameful this situation is yet to be properly resolved.”
The report condemned ministers’ plans to force many buy-to-let landlords to pay to fix unsafe cladding and these landlords were “no more to blame than other leaseholders” for defects.
Landlords renting out more than one leasehold property will have to pay to fix building defects.
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), said: “As the committee rightly notes landlords are no more to blame than other leaseholders for historic building safety defects.
“Ministers now need to stop dragging their feet on this issue, accept the committee’s conclusions and end its unjust and inexcusable policy.”
A DLUHC spokesperson said: “We have scrapped the flawed loan scheme and delivered the most radical and far-reaching legal protections ever for leaseholders on building safety.
“Industry, not leaseholders, must pay to fix the problems they caused. We will consider the committee’s report carefully and respond in detail.
“However, asking taxpayers to pay more upfront instead of developers, and to covers costs for overseas property investors, would be entirely the wrong approach.”