- Support to be extended to more leaseholders including those
in collectively owned and enfranchised buildings who currently
risk facing bills for serious building and fire-safety defects
- A new scheme will make construction product manufacturers
contribute towards the cost of putting unsafe buildings right
- Comes alongside wider reforms to give millions of
leaseholders stronger rights, protections and control over their
homes
More homeowners who have been facing significant bills to make
their homes safe will be given better protection from those high
costs, under new measures announced today (27 October 2026).
Existing rules already protect many leaseholders from footing the
bill for fixing historic building safety defects, but some people
still fall through gaps in the system due to different forms of
ownership not covered by the law, leaving them at risk of paying
for problems they did not cause.
The government will now go further to narrow these gaps and give
more people financial support.
Construction product manufacturers connected to historic unsafe
cladding and insulation products will also be made to contribute
more towards putting affected buildings right. For the first
time, government will have powers it needs to recover
contributions from manufacturers - and at scale.
These new proposals were unveiled in Parliament during the second
reading of the Remediation of Unsafe Cladding Bill a drive to get
unsafe buildings fixed faster and make sure those responsible for
fixing unsafe buildings will face tougher consequences if they
fail to act.
Building Safety Minister said:
We are going further to protect more homeowners from unfair costs
and make construction product manufacturers contribute towards
putting things right.
Alongside new powers to force those responsible to fix unsafe
buildings, these measures will help give residents the safety and
security they deserve.
The new measures will intend to help:
-
Leaseholders who buy a flat as their only home but miss
out on costs protections because of the previous owners'
circumstances. Under current rules, whether someone is
protected from some building safety bills can depend on the
circumstances of the person who owned the flat on 14 February
2022. This means someone can buy a flat later as their only or
main home and still miss out, because a previous owner was
ineligible. The government is exploring how to narrow this gap,
to help more leaseholders feel confident in the safety of their
home.
-
Leaseholders in collectively owned and enfranchised
buildings who can face some of the biggest bills for fixing
fire-safety problems. Because there is no separate
freeholder, residents are not covered by the leaseholder
protections of the Building Safety Act, putting them at risk of
paying a lot. New government funding will help towards
remediation of internal high risk and high-cost fire-safety
defects.
-
Leaseholders with multiple properties that have
non-cladding building safety problems they did not cause and
are not currently protected under the Building Safety
Act. At the moment, protections generally cover people
who owned no more than three properties on 14 February 2022.
The government plans to raise this limit to six, so more people
who owned four to six properties and did not qualify on this
date will be protected from having these costs passed on to
them. This will support individuals at risk of high bills
through no fault of their own and in many cases need to make
their properties safe for the people that live in them.
The Bill will speed up action by placing a legal duty on those
responsible to fix unsafe buildings, with those failing to act
facing criminal penalties and fines of up to £500,000. It will
also allow authorities to step in and get work done where those
responsible consistently refuse to do so.
ENDS
Notes to editors
- See more information here about the
Bill's introduction to Parliament.
- Existing leaseholder protections are based on circumstances
on 14 February 2022, when the protections were first published.
Among other conditions, a lease can qualify where the flat was
the owner's only or main home at that point, or they owned no
more than three UK properties. The lease's protected or
unprotected status passes to future buyers, meaning someone
buying the flat later as their only home can still miss out. The
date was fixed to prevent the rules being gamed once the
protections were known. See more informationhere.
- Further details on eligibility and funding for the new
protections, as well as how the construction product manufacturer
scheme will operate, will be introduced into the Bill later as it
passes through Parliament or published alongside it in due
course.
