Buildings: Repairs and Maintenance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of setting building remediation targets for non-cladding building defects.
Answered by Alex Norris
Our assessment remains that building safety related remediation works are required in a very small number of buildings under 11m in height. We already expect building owners to undertake assessments of their buildings to identify internal and external wall fire safety defects and remediate them at pace where they are life critical.
Those developers that have signed the Developer Remediation Contract are required to remediate internal fire safety defects arising from design and construction, we will continue to make sure that developers meet the contract obligations and are auditing their fire risk assessments and will hold them to account.
We maintain that the responsibility for the costs of fixing historical cladding and building fire safety defects should rest with building owners. They should not pass these costs on to leaseholders but should seek to recover costs from those who were responsible for building unsafe homes.
Alongside taking action to increase the pace of remediation, following consideration of the phase 2 report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, we will announce further measures to protect leaseholders.
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