The Building Safety Bill – Rights, Powers and Protections for Residents

anothher quango--ineffective i expect

as for 15 years--we already have that--it is too short

When is this likely to come in? This along with the abolition of section 21, minimum EPC 'C' rating coming, elec' certificates, £30,0000 - unlimited fines /imprisoment for breaking the rules I could go on !

Neat but immoral sidestep Jenrick.
The government is responsible for implementing and overseeing the regime of building regulations and enforcing same and this has been so for decades.
The government therefore cannot escape the fact that it has culpability.
It isn't leaseholders who are responsible for or oversaw the building of their units.
To now make them responsible for suing those builders for shoddy historic building works, that have left them vulnerable to ever escalating costs AND to remediate same, indicates an egregious, biased and partisan lack of awareness of the true scale and scandal of this matter.
However, it does continue to expose the very cosy relationship enjoyed by the Tories and their developer funders.
Most developers are no longer in business. The cost of litigation is astronomical and could in the courts for decades.
You have once again made leaseholders responsible for bad legislative governance.
This is not a solution. It's a glory kick into your own net.
If you bought a home that needs an intrusive survey every five years to ensure it is still safe you should never have been sold that home in the first place

We will have to analyse the Bill but as so often with the Government this seems like too much and not enough! Retrospectively extending the time limit for making a claim from 6 to 15 years is a bad precedent. What other time-barred claims should be allowed? How can businesses plan and assess their liabilities when the rules change after a job is finished?
Extending the time limit may play havoc with the professional indemnity insurance industry, who would stand behind a negligent contractor. Unless insurers are compelled by Government to accept liability they may seek to avoid claims under their terms and conditions and the contractor will then be exposed and probably insolvent meaning the directors will cause the company to cease trading.
Many large scale projects are constructed by single purpose vehicles (SPVs) which are set up for one project only. This Bill will lead to more developments being done like that. If the "developer" is wound up within a year or two of a project completing, it makes no difference if the time limit is 6 years or 15.
Files may not have been kept for 15 years so anyone wanting to claim for a building constructed in 2006/07 may have difficulty obtaining evidence.
This just seems like an exercise in "doing something" so that Mr Jenrick can piously announce that he is helping leaseholders. Whilst I don't have Dale Roberts' rather cynical view, I do think this is not a solution.
Inviting leaseholders to speculate tens of thousands of pounds on complex litigation and to risk having to pay costs is useless and will not as Jenrick claims "tip the balance decisively in the favour of the consumer … with developers sent a clear message that if they build substandard homes, they will pay the consequences".
Most SPV developers are wound up after a development is finished. The shareholders of developers that are not actively trading but are still in existence will now be looking to wind the companies up and distribute the assets. Even if leaseholders have a good legal case (and it will be rare to have a straightforward claim) the defendant company may well be wound up before the leaseholders can collect.
Even if (a) the leaseholders are flush with money (b) the developer still exists, (c) the paperwork still exists. (d) the leaseholders can prove negligence on the part of someone involved in the project, it will take at least 12 to 18 months to get to court and then many more months of litigation. That still does not fix the problem.

So basic, non-compliance with the law, i.e. building regulations is now to be dealt with prmerily as a civil matter, not by ensuring comliance through sufficent building control......so weak.

Grenfell, and many of the other 'faults' that are coming from to the fore are as a result of insufficent enforcement and prosecution of the developers/builders, and it won't rectified by pushing the means of this prosecution onto the little guy to solve.

Definitely a case of the government wants the problem to go away - but because they don't actually want to solve it, they try to come up with something that looks like a solution.
Even on initial inspection, this clearly won't work.
Where does the magic figure of 15 years come from?
How are leaseholders (and there could be over a hundred in a large block, more in some of the bigger complexes), supposed to coordinate themselves in a complex legal battle with, as pointed out above, a real chance of losing on a technicality. If they do win, the developer's SPV won't still be in existence to pay.
Leaseholders are already receiving MASSIVE bills for Safety Remediation works, which they have to pay NOW - even though they don't have the resources available....
Could you and all your neighbours suddenly find £70,000 plus to pay a remediation bill?
I know I couldn't - and I don't think my neighbours could either.

On a related subject, has anyone else read the details of the £50 per month 'forced loan' and how the capital will be repaid?
I must have missed that bit in the press summary.

Reply to the comment left by Shining Wit at 10/07/2021 - 10:49
The "debt" is assigned to the building ie the leaseholder who lives in or buys into the development is liable for the debt as an ongoing expense.

I am pleased to see that even Tory MPs are saying this new law is useless. Inviting people who are struggling to pay additional costs to embark on litigation is crass.
The Government promise a "Generous finance scheme to provide reassurance for leaseholders in buildings between 11 and 18 metres (4 to 6 storeys), ensuring they never pay more than £50 a month for cladding removal". This is just headline-grabbing. £50 is an arbitrary figure. Will it be the same in Westminster as in Worksop?
In some cases £50 a month won't cover the interest on the loan needed to repair the cladding. One possible solution is for Government to provide secured loans but with minimal lending criteria so that nearly all leaseholders qualify. We also need approved systems and some way of vetting the installers so that leaseholders don't end up with fresh problems in future from shoddy and expensive repairs.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 13/07/2021 - 10:23
No innocent leaseholder should be liable for any historical building defect.
There is a very cogent expose on the above :
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-house-mafia-the-scandal-of-new-builds
I particularly like the following from the article :
"Above all, a full Competition and Market Authority inquiry into UK housebuilders is long overdue. Powerful vested interests benefit mightily from this high-price, low-build-quality gridlock. They make big political donations to protect the status quo."

Reply to the comment left by DALE ROBERTS at 13/07/2021 - 17:32Dale, that's all well and good and sounds fine but life isn't fair. There are any number of cases where we could say: "No innocent [DESCRIBE THEM] should be liable for [SOME ILL THAT BEFALLS THEM]" but unless the Government is willing (a) to get ripped off by some of the same people who may be found to have caused the cladding problems and (b) to write out a massive blank cheque, this problem does not look like it will be fixed without cost to leaseholders.
The article we are commenting on is about Jenrick's hare-brained scheme to encourage impecunious leaseholders to risk everything on speculative litigation.
How long will a full Competition and Market Authority inquiry take to hear evidence and report? How long after that before its recommendations are implemented? All the while the cladding is not getting fixed. I am happy to hear a better idea than mine but I don't think a public inquiry is it.