The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has called on building owners and landlords to help leaseholders by sharing vital building safety information with their residents.
Although the Building Safety Bill introduces a statutory responsibility for building owners and landlords to share fire safety information, the Mayor fears that implementation will take too long for flat owners who are already struggling to get this information.
He believes strongly that voluntary disclosure is the fastest route to improve transparency and safety as well as to rebuild trust between leaseholders and the property industry.
The Mayor’s letter also encourages building owners and landlords to share ‘EWS1’ forms containing information about the external wall system of buildings, which leaseholders have also experienced challenges accessing.
There have also been cases of criminals offering fake EWS1 forms in order to take advantage of desperate leaseholders.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “More than four years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the events of that terrible night continue to cast a long shadow over the lives of thousands of Londoners whose faith in the safety and security of their home has been stripped away.
“The current building safety situation is a scandal and a crisis – and it appears that the Government are still not willing to properly address it.
“We cannot go on like this. Building owners must act now to rebuild trust with leaseholders. This can only be achieved through communication and transparency, accompanied by robust changes to the building safety regulatory system.”
Geeta Nanda OBE, G15 Chair and Chief Executive of MTVH, said: “We fully agree that accurate, timely, and transparent communications with residents are critical in responding to the building safety challenges that have emerged in recent years.
“G15 members are investing over £2.9bn in the next 10 years in vital building safety works and have created dedicated teams from within existing resources to ensure that important fire safety information is shared with residents in an accessible way.
“For example, Fire Risk Assessments have been made available to residents upon request as a matter of course for some time.
“The complexity of the issues surrounding fire safety mean that the process of information sharing needs to be carefully managed, and where housing associations are not the freeholder of a building it can mean that we are ourselves waiting for information to be provided by third parties before we can share this with our residents.
“We welcome the Mayor’s recognition of the good practice many housing providers have already adopted and we are committed to working together to provide residents with the information they need about their homes.”
Dave Richards, London Cladding Action Group, said: “The Building Safety Crisis has blighted the lives of thousands of Londoners. It is financially ruining people across our city.
“We are pleased the Mayor of London is standing with leaseholders and pressing the Government to End Our Cladding Scandal. At the heart of the scandal is the lack of trust in the property industry.
“The Mayor is right, trust needs rebuilding and the voices of leaseholders need to be heard and acted on instead of the scant regard our voices are currently given.”
Sebastian O’Kelly, CEO of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, said: “We are delighted that Sadiq Khan is again showing his support for leaseholders, after joining the cladding demonstration in February 2020 and his decisive intervention last year to get shared ownership leases up to 999 years.
“There are more flats in London than anywhere else in the UK, and they are a mess. Leaving aside the near limitless cheating by commercial interests over leasehold, tens of thousands of ordinary families face ruin with building safety costs and we are still nowhere near resolving this crisis – more than four years after Grenfell.
“We will be in the same position in four years’ time unless government takes decisive action to put right badly built blocks and tries to recoup what it can from those who build these flawed buildings.”