Welcome to this week’s building safety bulletin. This page outlines some of the significant changes affecting developers, leaseholders, contractors, housing providers, and anyone else interested in the UK’s building safety crisis.
1. Galliard and Emerson sign remediation contract
Galliard Homes and Emerson Group have joined 44 other developers in signing the remediation contract for buildings 11m and over. Nearly a month after the deadline, there are four developers that have not signed – Abbey Developments, Avant, Dandara and Rydon Homes. If Michael Gove intends to keep to his word, these homebuilders will be barred from joining the government’s Responsible Actors Scheme (ROS).
2. Housing Ombudsman’s cladding complaints assessment
After its Spotlight report into the handling of cladding and fire safety complaints in May 2021, the Housing Ombudsman has said responses from landlords have ‘improved’ but communications with residents ‘remain problematic’. The housing providers that have been criticised in today’s Housing Ombudsman’s press release include L&Q, Hyde Housing, Riverside Group and Poplar HARCA. Those receiving praise include One Housing Group and Thames Valley Housing.
3. Gove writes to Railpen
Last week, The Times reported that Michael Gove has written to Railpen, condemning the pension fund for failing to address fire safety defects on buildings it owns. The most high-profile cases involving Railpen, or its subsidiary Grey GR, are Cardinal Lofts in Ipswich and Vista Tower in Stevenage. In October last year, DLUHC launched legal action against Grey GR, the freeholder of Vista Tower.
4. Kingspan agrees to meet with SoS
Following Michael Gove’s letter to the cladding firm Kingspan at the end of March, the company has signalled that it is ‘very open to working’ with the Secretary of State and the Department on cladding repair work. According to Building, Aiveen Kearney, the Group’s UK Managing Director, has informed that the Department that costs will be covered for the ‘inappropriate use’ of its K15 insulation and where ‘safe retention cannot be supported by testing’.
5. Conveyancers and the Building Safety Act
Today’s Conveyancer has carried out a survey with 196 conveyancers looking at how they are processing transactions of leasehold properties following the Building Safety Act, which became law just under a year ago. According to the report, 52% of the conveyancers said they were ‘not currently acting on sales or purchases of leasehold properties affected by the BSA’ and 15% responded that they were ‘only acting in transactions with certain lenders’.
