On 13 April 2022, the government revealed a wide-ranging agreement that will see the industry contribute £5 billion to address the building safety issues following the Grenfell Tower fire disaster.
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, agreed on a solution with the housing industry that will see housing developers commit at least £2 billion to fix buildings that are deemed unsafe. The industry will also pay up to a further £3 billion through an expansion to the Building Safety Levy.
Under the new agreement, said to be legally enforceable, over 35 of the UK's biggest housebuilders have pledged to fix all unsafe buildings over 11 meters high that they have played a role in developing over the last three decades. The Secretary of State said that there is little time left for the companies to sign up to the pledge and those who failed to do so may face consequences.
The new scheme will be funded through an extension to the Building Safety Levy that will be chargeable on all new residential buildings in England, which is expected to raise up to an additional £3 billion over ten years from developers and ensure no leaseholder in medium-rise buildings faces crippling bills, even when their developer cannot be traced.
New proposed laws, announced in February under the Building Safety Bill, will ensure qualifying leaseholders are protected from the costs of historical building safety defects, including total protection against cladding costs.
The agreement confirms that the developers will:
Speaking about the agreement, Michael Gove said: "Today marks a significant step towards protecting innocent leaseholders and ensuring those responsible pay to solve the crisis they helped to cause.
"I welcome the move by many of the largest developers to do the right thing.
"But this is just the beginning. We will do whatever it takes to hold industry to account, and under our new measures there will be nowhere to hide."
