Service charges and managing agents (E&W): see the update above to section [6.5.2].

(especially for the main text to n 10) In July 2025 the MHCLG announced the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 (SI 2025/797), to come into force on 6 April 2026, for a version of the Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) recommended by the Phase 1 report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. Peter Apps summarises the new regime in a July 2025 edition of his Peter’s Substack blog:

The government will require building owners to identify all people in buildings above 18m (and those in buildings between 11m and 18m where there are known issues) who would struggle to evacuate without help. They must then offer a ‘person-centred fire risk assessment’, if requested by the resident, to discuss how to mitigate particular risks and improve their chances of evacuation. If the resident consents, they will then produce an ‘emergency evacuation statement’ and share the information with the local fire service ... In some respects, this is good policy. It puts a lot of the power in residents’ hands, effectively by giving them the right to be offered bespoke fire safety arrangements. It might not be full-fat evacuation plans, but it takes away the situation at Grenfell (and most other blocks) where individual vulnerabilities were completely ignored and any questions swept under the comfort blanket of ‘stay put’. But a very serious downside is the absence of any funding.

(especially for n 13) On possible insurance reforms in leasehold developments (E&W), see the update above to section [7.7]. 

(especially for the main text to n 16) The primacy of the text of the lease could mean that a ‘full repairing’ obligation on a long-term commercial tenant requires the tenant to remediate original construction defects compromising safety (and pay for this) - if clearly expressed and if a well-advised tenant is willing to take on this responsibility. For an example where a tenant in effect did – attempting unsuccessfully to get out of this responsibility – see Into Nominee One Ltd v Study Group UK Ltd [2026] EWHC 1201 (TCC), discussed in the update below to section [11.4.2]. Conversely, a landlord retaining responsibility for keeping the building ‘in good and substantial repair and condition’ and for complying with all ‘legal obligations’ could be obliged to replace combustible cladding. This was the case – the meaning of these phrases requiring litigation – for a purpose-built 16-storey hotel in NW London in Essendi UK Hotels 2 Ltd v London Property Company Ltd [2026] EWHC 1354 (TCC) (Judge Stephen Davies). Unlike the closely comparable residential example of Citiscape in section [11.4.2], the lease appears to have contained no provisions allowing the landlord to pass the cost of such work to the leaseholder via service charges; if it had, the commercial tenant of such a block would enjoy none of the protections most residential long leaseholders in E&W enjoy under the BSA 2022, as summarised in Table 11.1.

(especially for the main text to n 16) In E&W, the FTT has statutory powers to vary long leases of flats, under the current text of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987, pt IV. For recent examples of this power being exercised, see 56 Westbourne Terrace RTM Co Ltd v Polturak, Davies [2025] UKUT 88 (LC); Weycroft Weybridge Ltd v Ian Wilson, Jill Wilson [2025] UKUT 64 (LC); and Eastern Pyramid Group Corporation SA v Spire House RTM Co Ltd [2025] UKUT 292 (LC).

Inadequate cavity barriers in multi-unit developments in England & Wales: commentator Peter Apps noted in Peter’s Substack (August 2025) that in the first half of 2025 house builder Taylor Wimpey booked a loss of £92m, because of £222m worth of fire safety repairs – predominantly £145m for fixing defective cavity barriers behind brickwork and render:

We have been here before. In 2019, an independent report into the country’s second largest housebuilder, Persimmon, found a ‘systemic nationwide problem’ with missing and/or incorrectly installed cavity barriers in its homes, prompting a recommendation that its board reconsider the company’s entire ‘purpose and ambition’. So why does a modern country in the 21st century, with ambitions to build 300,000 homes every year through its apparently vibrant private sector, have such trouble correctly fitting the rolled-up bits of mineral wool insulation that stop fire spreading through unseen gaps?

[The recommendation Apps mentions comes from the independent report by Stephanie Barwise QC, mentioned in the book at n 18 to section [11.2.1]; it is no longer accessible on Persimmon’s website.]

Fire-stopping of services within multi-unit residential blocks: a reporter to CROSS-UK (Report 1201, August 2023) recorded numerous compartmentation surveys in residential flats showing inadequate and incomplete fire stopping of cables and services, as they passed through compartment walls - either as part of the initial build or following subsequent installations after occupation. They included fire alarm systems, communications wiring and general electrical works. As well as creating new penetrations, later work may damage existing fire stopping systems, rendering them ineffective. These compartmentation defects are very often in unseen locations, for example above false ceilings, and therefore not obvious to building owners and managers. The reporter estimated that 70% of residential flats seen in the last 12 months had some compartmentation issues. A later report came to similar findings: ‘Widespread Compartmentation Issues Found in Flats’ (Report 1512, June 2026). On CROSS, see the update above to section [5.7.2].

Defective or inefficient district heating systems or networks (a single boiler or heat pump unit supplying heating and hot water to many residential units, in some cases cooling too): there are issues about the cost of the energy supplied, the need for repair/upgrading and who funds any work needed. This is seldom a life-threatening issue in multi-unit developments, but can lead to increasing ongoing costs for long leaseholders or tenants and intolerable heat in hot weather. Repair or replacement – or bringing a system up to new energy efficiency standards being planned by DESNZ for the UK – may cost as much as remediation of combustible cladding. Under the terms of long leases, such work will often fall on long leaseholders via the variable service charge (no statutory protection against this, save general controls on the reasonableness of service charges), and no BSA 2022-type mechanism to shift responsibility to the original developer or its parent company. 

Further complicating the situation, the central unit may be in a part of the development owned by a different freeholder/landlord from some of the residential units connected to the network. Consumer Scotland analysed the situation north of the Border in a January 2026 report: Challenges Facing Heat Network Customers in Scotland; in E&W, see the DESNZ/DBEIS Heat Network Efficiency Scheme (June 2026). The DESNZ has given the regulator Ofgem new powers across the UK (except NI): ‘Heat Network Customers to be Shielded from Unfair Price Hikes’. See also, Zoe Wood, ‘“Plainly wrong”: London Flat Dwellers Fight Shock £200,000 Heating Bill’ The Guardian (7 February 2026).

For anonymised analysis of 12 RAAC panels failing simultaneously on a UK building, already inspected and classified as ‘high critical’ under the IStructE guidance, see CROSS-UK, Sudden Failure of Several RAAC Roof Panels (Report 1377, April 2025). And for a plan to demolish 350+ council-built homes near Aberdeen, the City Council rehousing tenants, buying privately-owned homes back and selling owners a new home elsewhere, see Kirstie Topp, ‘Council to Demolish Torry RAAC Homes “As Soon As Possible” Amid Aims to “Rebuild Balnagask”’ The Press & Journal (26 August 2025).

On water penetration of CLT structures, see CROSS-UK, Water Ingress to Cross-Laminated Timber Structural Frame (Report 1124, June 2022).

On CROSS, see also the update above to section [5.7.2].

(especially for the main text to n 34) A summary of the applicable Rent Standard, in line with a direction from the previous Government, and guidance from the Regulator of Social Housing, was published in February 2026. For an overview of the Regulator’s activities, see its Regulatory Casework Review 2026 (July 2026). 

(especially for n 38) The changes to security of tenure included in the Renters’ Rights Bill became law in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (E only). 

(especially for the main text to n 42) A landlord similarly has a right to an injunction against a tenant in order to ensure its ability to inspect the premises, as provided for in the tenancy terms, with contempt of court (a potential prison sentence) as the sanction for failure to comply: see Connexus Homes Ltd v Weaver [2025] EWCA Civ 655 (a rare example of an appeal case where the lay respondents appeared in person); on access, see also Stonewater Ltd v Harris [2026] EWCC 42, discussed in the update above to section [9.1.2].

(especially for n 59) Correction: the Leasehold (Ground Rent) Act 2022 (E&W) should be the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 (E&W); the mistake is carried through to the Table of Statutes on p lxxxiii.

Reservation fees and their terms: in a UK context covered by the New Homes Quality Code, a reservation agreement must include the amount of reservation fee, the property purchase price, the customer’s right to cancel within the reservation period and that there is a 14-day cooling-off period, during which the customer can cancel the agreement and receive a refund of the full reservation fee. On the Code, see section [6.7] and its updates above. 

(especially for n 69) Avon Freeholds went on two further appeals. The Court of Appeal at [2025] EWCA Civ 1016 (Sir Launcelot Henderson, Jeremy Baker and Newey LJJ concurring) held that the statute clearly spelt out the negative impact of failure to serve a notice of participation on a qualifying tenant (towards possible appointment of an RTM company), thus reversing part of the Upper Tribunal decision and confirming the procedural obstacles ahead of those who want to manage their own development. The Supreme Court took the opposite view (unanimously, Lord Briggs giving the sole judgment): Avon Freeholds Ltd v Cresta Court E RTM Company Ltd [2026] UKSC 31. It was only the third RTM case to reach this Court. 

(especially for the main text to n 72) For an example of all of these issues – about allegedly defective window frames in student accommodation in Liverpool, legal action being taken by long leaseholders against their immediate landlord and the blocks' management company – see Better Intelligent Management Ltd v Zaid Alothman Holding Ltd [2025] EWHC 392 (Ch) (Richard Smith J).

(especially for n 73) For another example of a court or tribunal preventing a landlord’s legal costs from being recovered from leaseholders via service charges, see Triplark Ltd v Howard [2025] UKUT 232 (LC) (Judge Elizabeth Cooke). On earlier legal issues in the same London N6 development, see n 117 in section [3.4.5] in the book. For Court of Appeal discussion of long leaseholders’ statutory rights (E&W) to challenge the reasonableness of service charges for long-term agreements (eg for the installation and maintenance of communal heat and power plants) under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 s 19, see Spender v FIT Nominee Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 1578; on the limited scope for challenging the reasonableness of a landlord’s service charge decision-making in contract alone, see Bradley v Abacus Land 4 Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 1308. On the meaning of ‘service charge’, see Barton v Platform Housing Ltd [2025] UKUT 369 (LC). On the right approach to interpreting a lease, see Weinberger v BHRM Ltd [2025] UKUT 160 (LC), also Males LJ (Snowden and Dove LJJ concurring) in relation to leases granted under ‘right to buy’ legislation in The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Leaseholders of Brewster House and Malting House [2025] EWCA Civ 1591 at [38]ff. The Court held that the cost of remedying structural defects deriving from the form of construction originally used (Large Panel System) could not be imposed on the leaseholders via the service charge.

Illustrating the impact of the slow speed of remediation of high-rise residential developments, as well as much greater awareness of the downsides of the current legal regime for long leaseholds in England & Wales, figures published on LinkedIn (January 2026) by Rod Turner on the percentage of London homes sold at a loss (against their purchase price) show a steady rise in such losses for flats from fewer than 10% of 2016 sales up to more than 20% of 2025 sales; the comparable figures for London houses remain less than 5% through the whole period. 

The BSA 2022 – under complex conditions – protects many long leaseholders against the cost of remediation (see Table 11.1); but the impact of leasehold tenure on multi-unit developments also makes it much harder to ensure that remediation work, even when required under a court or tribunal order, actually takes place as required and by a prescribed deadline. Meanwhile, leaseholders are living in homes which are dangerous, potentially uninsurable (or only insurable with high premiums and heavy excesses) and perhaps unsellable to anyone needing mortgage finance. 

This picture is confirmed by figures from estate agents Hamptons, reported by Leasehold Knowledge Partnership: 

[Flat sellers] represented 90.0% of [London] homes sold at a loss, up from 78.4% in 2019. Last year, 28.2% of sellers in Tower Hamlets [with the highest density of flats second to Westminster] sold for less than they paid, the highest figure in both the capital and the country, with flats making up 90%+ of all sales in the area. 

Current mortgage lending rules, cladding uncertainties, anxieties about service charges etc and the halting pace of reform are also slowing the pace of sales. Based on property website data, Rupert Jones in The Guardian (8 August 2026) reported that most leasehold flats in England on sale in 2025 failed to find a buyer within six months, London having the highest figure at 87%.

A legal argument rarely attempted in a lease context surfaced in relation to a Grenfell Tower type claim: significant non-compliant features compromising the fire safety of a residential building in Brighton (UK). It had been occupied from new in 2007 by a college as tenant on a 25-year full repairing lease. Could the tenant now argue that discovery of the defects – if shown to be in the building as constructed and predicted to take about two years to remedy, the building meanwhile being uninhabitable – frustrated the lease, bringing it to an end? 

In Into Nominee One Ltd v Study Group UK Ltd [2026] EWHC 1201 (TCC), Roger ter Haar KC reviewed the English case law on the frustration of contracts, and its specific application to leases (and agreements for leases), in the context of a strike-out and linked summary judgment application for rent from the landlord. Finding against the tenant, the judge said:

[110] ... the Parties did not assume that the Premises would be defect-free. On the contrary, the Agreement provided for a defects liability period during which manifest defects would be remedied. Nor did the Parties assume that after the defects liability period had expired there would be no latent defects: to the contrary, Clause 9.3 of the Agreement excuses the Landlord from further liability after the expiration of the defects liability period, which must be a reflection of an acceptance that there was a possibility of defects emerging. Similarly ... the expectation that deeds of warranty will be in place is consistent with the usual understanding in arrangements of this type that there may be latent defects in the built structure(s) which had not become manifest and/or had not been identified by the end of the defects liability period. 

[111] Thus, it is impossible to conclude that the Parties had a joint expectation that the Premises once let would be defect-free, or contain defects to a certain extent but no further, or contain defects of a certain type but no others ...

[130] ... this appears to me to be a case where the Parties have allocated the relevant risk and either took into account or should have taken into account that there could be fire safety defects in the Premises of sufficient seriousness that the Premises might need to be rebuilt or remedied so as to prevent their use for [the tenant’s] educational purposes.

For a summary for England of implementation of both Grenfell Tower Inquiry reports, see Grenfell Tower Inquiry Government Progress Report (June 2026), linking to individual sectoral reports on different aspects of the reports’ conclusions and recommendations, in February 2026 the MHCLG published its Annual Report on implementation of the GTI Phase 2 Report. 

For an up to date (on publication) summary of litigation relating to the BSA 2022, with incisive analysis of its provisions, see Dovar & Sawtell on The Building Safety Act (Sweet & Maxwell, October 2025). Readers should bear in mind that in English law an individual tribunal decision – like a single judgment of the TCC or any other version of the High Court – does not ‘make law’: our version of the common law doctrine of precedent does not require later tribunals or judges at the same level to follow earlier views of the law, nor are all tribunal decisions routinely published or easy to find. For a possible new common law basis of claim by long leaseholders against their landlord for remediation of safety-critical defects, see the update above to section [5.2].

Table 11.1: PAS9980:2022 has become contentious, in the light of consultation on a redraft and a MHCLG plan to make its use mandatory by law. Fire specialists have sharply differing views about its value – notably the concept of a ‘tolerable’ risk – and the best way(s) to ensure reliability in fire safety assessments of existing buildings. The debate is summarised by Peter Apps in Peter’s Substack (January 2026). 

Table 11.1: in July 2026, the MHCLG announced a short window for applications for funding for remediation of unsafe cladding for multi-occupied residential buildings in England under 11m in height – where an external wall system presents a risk to life via fire spread, identified through a PAS 9980:2022 compliant assessment and where the risk is assessed as not tolerable without mitigation or remediation. The machinery and basic rules follow the existing CSS scheme, operating via Homes England; applications opened in August 2026 for an eight-week period, with the building’s ‘responsible entity’ (only) able to apply: the person or entity ‘with the legal responsibility or right for a building’s external wall repair and maintenance’. Before funding is confirmed, responsible entities will be asked if they have explored redress measures or alternative funding routes, such as insurance claims, developer contributions, or warranty schemes.

In July 2025 proceedings, as a sequel to the Centrillion Point case (n 99 to Table 11.2), the freeholder asked the FTT (Property Chamber) to extend the 18-month deadline for remediation work in its earlier Remediation Order by 68 weeks. The freeholder blamed delays in negotiating with the original developer which had converted the 13-storey block from offices (now appointed to remediate), requesting the extra time not to start until at least application had been made for Gateway 2 approval to the Building Safety Regulator (not yet done). The FTT held that its powers did not permit an open-ended date for completion of works; nor was it appropriate to allow such an extension, strongly opposed by the leaseholders:

[18] [T]he purpose of a remediation order is to remedy specified relevant defects. The Tribunal’s jurisdiction under section of the BSA is not concerned with who pays for those works. While the advantages to the Respondent to Durkan [original developer] undertaking the work can be understood from its own financial perspective, it was always the Respondent’s obligation to ensure that the specified relevant defects were remedied in accordance with the time stipulated in the Order. The Respondent could at any time have sought a remediation contribution order from the developer but has never done so. As such, the lack of cooperation from the developer can only be of limited relevance to the application before us.

Illustrating a local authority successfully agreeing a Remediation Order with a building freeholder or landlord, adopted by the FTT instead of a planned hearing, see Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council v Sovereign Network Group (1-31 Oyster Bay Apartments, Sterte, Poole BH15 2FN) (HAV/00HQ/BSA/2025/0002, 10 April 2026).

What is a ‘building safety risk’ in the BSA 2022 s 120, for the purpose of granting a Remediation Order (RO), where all the other conditions for such an order are present? The FTT discussed the case law so far in Kieft v Hyde Housing Association Ltd (2 Hillside, London NW10) LON/00AE/BSA/2024/0503 (September 2025). The tribunal held that it could specify the defects needing remediation; it could not impose a detailed specification of the works to be undertaken, nor could it require a signed EWS1 form when remediation was complete.

The FTT has no powers to sanction a freeholder for failure to complete remediation by the date in a Remediation Order, but leaseholders can apply to the County Court for damages and/or an injunction – which may not guarantee a swifter completion of the project. To give the FTT additional powers would put it in a role of surrogate project manager – not necessarily well informed enough to carry out the task. On potential criminal sanctions for failure to remediate, see the update below to section [11.5.5]. 

Illustrating how remediation cases under the BSA 2022, starting before tribunals, can easily also involve traditional litigation, the Centrillion Point case above led to a Remediation Agreement. The original developer of the development into dwellings, Durkan, agreed to pay for remediation of ‘relevant defects’ for Wallace, the development’s overall freeholder and landlord, Durkan otherwise being at risk of a Remediation Contribution Order at Wallace’s initiative. Could Wallace validly terminate the Remediation Agreement (now seeking an RCO against Durkan and its parent), and what was the impact of the BSA statutory framework on the ordinary right to terminate a contract for the other party’s breach? 

In the TCC, Constable J held that Durkan should be permitted to argue that Wallace’s termination of the agreement was unlawful, so refused Durkan’s application for reverse summary judgment and judgment on its own counterclaim: Durkan Estates Ltd v Wallace Estates Ltd [2026] EWHC 2003 (TCC). This led to the first joint hearing by a TCC judge and the President of the FTT, and the first order for the joint case management of TCC and FTT proceedings under the BSA 2022: Wallace Estates Ltd v Durkan Estates Ltd [2026] EWHC 2133 (TCC). On such collaboration, see also the TCC Guide 2026 section 9. [The TCC hearing on the merits is expected – unless the case settles – in early 2028, but in August 2026, Durkan abandoned construction work after 50 years, blaming in part the impact of ‘the increasing legislative and regulatory burden’, having set aside £18.6m in 2025 against legacy fire remediation costs.]

(also on n 99 to Table 11.2) The President of the Upper Tribunal (Edwin Johnson J) determined the respondents’ appeal in the Vista Tower Stevenage case, confirming the FTT’s joint and several Remediation Contribution Order for £75m and giving valuable guidance on the statutory tests for making orders under the BSA 2022: Edgewater (Stevenage) Ltd v Grey GR [2026] UKUT 18 (LC). 

Where a development has a third-party warranty still running when safety defects potentially within its scope are discovered, the existence of an insurer can complicate, rather than simplify, the position under the BSA 2022 in relation to a possible remediation order against the freeholder, as in Tobias v Grosvenor Freeholds Ltd (The Central, 163-165 Iverson Road, London NW6) (LON/00AG/BSA/2024/0008) (FTT (RP)) January 2025: see the update below to section [11.7.1].

(especially for n 100 to Table 11.2) In July 2025 the Court of Appeal gave judgment in Triathlon Homes LLP v Stratford Village Development Partnership: [2025] EWCA Civ 846. The case concerns Remediation Contribution Orders (RCOs) under part 5 of the BSA 2022: allocating liability for the cost of remediating building safety risks in external walls in five residential blocks on the former Olympic Games site in Stratford, East London, towards which the Building Safety Fund had already contributed. At [23] Nugee LJ gave a superbly clear summary of the schemes contained in, or created under, the BSA 2022 which deal with remediation costs and their interrelationship. The key issues on appeal were: 

• Was it ‘just and equitable’ for the FTT to make an RCO, at the request of a social housing provider as long leaseholder of units in the development, against the present owner as ‘associated’ with the original ‘developer’ (as defined)? (Yes) 

• Could the RCO apply to costs incurred before the relevant provisions of the BSA came into force? (Yes, encouraged by the Supreme Court in URS v BDW). 

Litigation may become necessary to clarify the scope, in relation to specific past projects, of the liability of developers who have committed to the MHCLG’s Developer Remediation Contract for England (also known as the Deed of Bilateral Contract). See Christina Lago, ‘Housing Association Asks High Court to Clarify Vistry’s Responsibility for Fire Safety Defects’ Building (29 August 2025). 

On the interaction between the ‘voluntary’ Responsible Actors Scheme (now regulated under the BSA 2022 ss 126-129 and implementing Regulations: SI 2023/753 and SI 2026/509), funding for remediation from the Building Safety Fund and the position of a developer one of whose subsidiaries was the main contractor for the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower (its safety approach criticised by the GTI), see R (on the application of Rydon Group Holdings Ltd) v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2025] EWHC 2182 (Admin) (Choudhury J).

The Building (Amendment) Wales) Regulations 2025 (WSI 2025/704), coming into force on 20 December 2025, banned the use of ‘relevant metal composite material’ (as defined) becoming part of an external wall, or specified attachment, of any building; and make changes to the Building Regulations 2010 for Wales. For further changes in Wales, see the updates above to sections [3.4.1] and [3.4.10].

The Welsh Leaseholder Support Scheme came to an end in June 2025.

In July 2025, the Welsh Government reported on work already undertaken or still to come (much of it collaboratively with the Westminster Government) to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 recommendations: Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report: Welsh Government Response. It also reported on progress under the Welsh Building Safety Programme. Of the 461 buildings in the Programme, 275 were private buildings and 186 social buildings. 43% had either works completed or underway (more progress in relation to social housing than private leasehold, and less progress for ‘orphan’ buildings with no developer in the frame), 47% of buildings were in the planning stages, with the remaining 10% either not requiring works or with remediation needs not yet. Figures updated monthly are available from Building Remediation Progress Statistics.

By August 2025, 10 developers had signed the Developer Remediation Contract (as in England, also known as the Deed of Bilateral Contract), covering in total 150 buildings, but only three developers had completed remediation work on any of their buildings. The Senedd Local Government and Housing Committee commented in November 2025: 

Our understanding of the approach to remediation adopted by the Welsh Government, as described by the Cabinet Secretary, is that it is dependent upon the goodwill of developers to begin works by the end of 2026, with no legal requirement to abide by this date. There is also no deadline, legislatively backed or otherwise, for completing works. Whilst we acknowledge that some progress has been made we are of the view that a different approach must now be taken to ensure that life-threatening historic deficiencies within buildings are addressed urgently.

More positively, the Welsh Government’s Guide to the Developer Remediation Contract (December 2025) notes: 

[D]evelopers [now 11] that signed up to the Developer Remediation Contract have separately committed to accelerate remediation, including targets to have all their buildings assessed by 31 August 2025 and have fire safety works underway or completed at 100% of developments by 31 December 2026.

Following the Welsh Government’s Consultation on the New Building Control Regime for Higher-Risk Buildings and Wider Changes to the Building Regulations in Wales (March 2025), the 150-page Building Safety (Wales) Act 2026 introduces a distinctive version of the English HRB regime, applicable to the occupation phase of multi-unit residential buildings (more widely defined), including some below the English HRB threshold, as well as those above. [For the Welsh definition of an HRB for construction purposes, see the Building Safety (Description of Higher-Risk Building) (Design and Construction Phase) (Wales) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/1210)]. The 2026 Act leaves virtually untouched those aspects of the BSA 2022 (including changes to the Building Act 1984) already applying to Wales, but does not itself extend to Wales any 2022 Act provisions originally applying only to England. 

Of what became the 2026 Act, Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government Jayne Bryant said: 

Its key principles are safety, accountability and residents’ voices, and it goes wider and further than existing legislation in other parts of the UK. It creates clear legal responsibilities for owners and others, gives residents new rights and pathways to raise complaints, enables standards for professional assessments, and provides robust enforcement powers when safety requirements aren’t met.

(especially for n 137) Dr Paul Stollard is also author of Fire from First Principles: A Design Guide to International Building Fire Safety (4th ed, Routledge, 2014).

For a summary of implementation in Scotland, completed and planned, of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report, see Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report: Scottish Government Response (March 2025). In January 2026, the Scottish Government launched the first part of a consultation on fire safety under the Scottish Building Regulations, to inform a fundamental review of the Regulations and guidance, as well as of procedures for recording and evidencing compliance, as part of its response to the GTI Phase 2 Report.

By 30 April 2025, two Single Building Assessments had been completed, with 13 under way; and the Cladding Remediation Programme had received 32 expressions of interest, initially for Single Building Assessments (by 31 March 2026, Government-funded assessments were underway in relation to 149 buildings). The Scottish Government website for its Cladding Remediation Programme offers monthly updates online. In June 2025, the BBC estimated that 1450 residential buildings in Scotland may need remedial work, of which 250 are high-rise, suggesting an overall cost to public finances of more than £3bn over 15 years: far more than the text in the book suggests. 

Plans for future funding for the Cladding Remediation Programme (in situations where no developer can be targeted for remediation costs) advanced when the UK Government consented in the Scotland Act 1998 (Specification of Devolved Tax) (Building Safety) Order 2024 (SI 2024/1362) to Scottish proposals to legislate the Scottish Building Safety Levy. Under the Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Act 2026, the levy will apply to ‘taxable building control events’: works of construction or conversion creating a new residential unit (NRU), as defined; will be charged based on the floor area of the unit, with levy rates not yet announced; payable at ‘the date of acceptance of a completion certificate’ by a local authority verifier; and payable by the unit’s owner at that moment (often the developer) – to Revenue Scotland. Penalties will apply for non-payment and for other defaults, including failure to register for the levy. 

The levy is now expected to come fully into effect in April 2028 and to raise £30m a year, which must be used towards ‘improving the safety of persons in or about buildings in Scotland by reimbursing, defraying or otherwise paying the costs of remediation, mitigation, or prevention works (and any work associated with or ancillary to those works) in buildings with an external wall cladding system, including work to produce surveys, assessments or reports’ (s 10). The Act’s s 46 requires the Scottish Ministers to report on the operation of the Act as least as often as every three years. It will add – according to Homes for Scotland – an average £3,500 to the cost of building a new home. The Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee published a Stage 1 Report on the Bill (December 2025), noting aspects of the Scottish proposals which differ from the English equivalents.

Progress has been slow in encouraging developers to commit contractually with the Scottish Government to remediate. In October 2025, Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan invited nine developers with an average operating profit of more than £10m to sign the Scottish Government's Developer Remediation Contract. This commits developers to:

• Arranging safety assessments for all buildings in scope that need to be checked as quickly as possible and providing this list to Scottish Ministers within 30 days of signing the contract

• Fixing all life critical safety problems in buildings 11 metres or taller they built or renovated in Scotland over the 30 years to 1 June 2022

• Keeping residents informed throughout the process.

Progress in identifying residential buildings across England & Wales posing an unacceptable fire risk from combustible cladding and remediating them: the May 2026 figures from the MHCLG suggest that 4,411 residential buildings 11m+ in height have been identified with unsafe cladding. Since October 2023, 2,331 buildings (53% of buildings known to the MHCLG) have either started or completed remediation works. Of these, 1,672 buildings (38% of monitored buildings) have had remediation work completed. As Peter Apps points out in his Substack (July 2026): 

[T]he rate of progress means it will currently be 2041 before the last of the identified buildings starts work to fix them – somewhat shy of the promise to complete everything by 2029. 

The scale of the problem (however uncertain its outer edges) perhaps makes unfair a direct comparison with Victoria’s dynamic and efficient State-based response to a much more contained and manageable problem – see section [11.5.7]; but critics like Peter Apps continue to argue that it would have been better for Government to take the initiative at the start: do the surveying, commission the work and then look to the industry to recoup public money expended. Scotland is much closer to this model: see section [11.5.3] and its updates above.

(especially for the main text to n 154) The UK’s Spectrum House fire – occurring during remediation work on the façade – is listed by Peter Apps as one scenario he considers most likely now to bring about a serious post-Grenfell blaze. It seems that the loss of 168 lives in Hong Kong at Wang Fuk Court (November 2025) was enabled (perhaps started) by ongoing work on the towers’ exterior: on the fire and linked prosecutions, see the updates above to section [5.7.2]. 

Here are Apps’ other suggested high-risk scenarios (Peter’s Substack, December 2025):

• A big fire at a poorly maintained office-to-residential conversion, housing a vulnerable population of homeless families

• A timber-framed fire that quickly compromises escape routes and burns inside the cavities, making it impossible to extinguish

• A fire starting in an underground car park, spreading to the structure of the building

• A major fire (such as lithium-ion battery) at a building which has high risk of disproportionate collapse, such as an LPS [Large Panel System] block

• A lithium-ion battery fire in a building with very poor standards of internal compartmentation, overcrowding and a vulnerable population

• A badly built modular tower block, where internal cavities present an opportunity for quick, undetected fire spread [on the additional fire risks which MMC may pose, see also the CROSS-UK Safety Report 1482 (November 2025)].

(especially for n 177) The Victorian Court of Appeal took an expansive view of the subrogation scheme under the Building Act 1993 (Vic) s 137F in a ‘special case’ referred to it by the County Court: State of Victoria (Department of Transport and Planning) v LU Simon Builders Pty Ltd [2025] VSCA 52.

Cladding Safety Victoria (CSV) was subsumed into the Building and Planning Commission (its work effectively at an end) on 1 July 2026 (Cladding Safety Victoria Repeal Act 2026 (Vic); commencement proclaimed by Victoria Government Gazette no S326 (16 June 2026)).

(especially for the main text to n 215) The six claimants unsuccessfully challenging three aspects of the LFRA 2024 on European human rights grounds in ARC Time Freehold Income Authorised Fund, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2025] EWHC 2751 (Admin) are Cadogan Estates Ltd, Grosvenor Estate, John Lyon’s Charity, The Portal Trust, Wallace Partnership Group, and ARC Time Freehold Income Fund. They are reported to collectively own the freehold to approximately 390,000 leasehold properties, comprising both flats and houses. Figures from the English Housing Survey 2021–22 show that, at that time, unit owners (long leaseholders) who had collectively enfranchised held the freehold interest in 21% of all leasehold flats – equivalent to approximately 735,000 flats, out of a total leasehold stock of around 3.5m flats (E&W). It is reasonable to assume that this percentage has since increased. Leaseholders who have collectively enfranchised thus represent a larger stakeholder class than all the lessees who inhabit the estates of the six claimants combined. [Not all the six claimants are participating in the final appeal to the UKSC.]

(especially for n 202) Changes in or under the LFRA 2024 have been implemented separately for Wales: s 27 on 31 January 2025, ss 49–52 on 3 March 2025 (with consequential changes to the RTM Companies (Model Articles) Regulations for Wales), with further reforms to come.

(especially for n 208) For another example of the technicality of the law on leasehold enfranchisement, see SGL 1 Ltd v FSV Freeholders Ltd [2025] EWHC 3 (Ch) (Judge Hodge KC).

(especially for the main text to n 222) A multi-unit residential building’s freeholder-landlord may also have its own defects warranty insurance, running for a period after completion of construction, covering the cost of remedying defined categories of original construction defects. That the policy’s conditions and exceptions, together defining the scope of the insurer’s liability, may exclude a claim, even for defects increasing the risk of damage or injury if a fire broke out, is illustrated by Vivid Housing Ltd v Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE [2025] EWHC 3315 (TCC) (Jefford J).

For obstacles in the way of a claim under the NHBC Buildmark policy for non-compliant construction in the ‘shared parts’ of a residential development in the UK, see the update above to section [7.2.6]. The insurer’s liability under the policy may also depend – as it does under Buildmark – on the policyholder’s liability to pay for – or to contribute to the cost of – relevant remediation work via service charges. If so, the statutory protections for leaseholders under the BSA 2022 in relation to remedying safety-related defects may discharge the insurer from liability, as suggested in Tobias v Grosvenor Freeholds Ltd (The Central, 163-165 Iverson Road, London NW6) (LON/00AG/BSA/2024/0008) (FTT (RP)) January 2025.

(especially for the main text to n 273) In Credit Suisse Life (Bermuda) Ltd v Ivanishvili [2025] UKPC 53 the Privy Council confirmed the ingredients for the tort of deceit in English law, declining to confirm a line of case law suggesting that the representee must be aware of the representation:

[128] ... (1) making a representation of fact (or law) which (2) is false, (3) the maker does not believe to be true, (4) is intended to be believed by the representee, and (5) causes the representee to believe that the representation is true. 

[129] The scope of what counts as a representation for this purpose is very broad. The concept is not limited to statements which expressly assert the truth of a proposition. Indeed, it is not limited to statements: it includes actions as well as words. For the purpose of the law of deceit, the term “representation” encompasses any words or act calculated to cause another person to believe a proposition. 

[161] There is no doubt that reliance or inducement is an essential element of a claim for deceit (or other claim for damages for misrepresentation). There are two aspects to the requirement. The first is that the representation must have deceived the claimant (C) by causing C to hold a false belief (“reliance in belief”). The second is that C must because of holding that false belief have acted so as to suffer loss (“reliance in action”). Both aspects of reliance require the representation to operate on the mind of C. But neither logically requires C to be consciously aware of the representation at the time when C acts on it. Nor is there any good reason to insist on such an additional requirement. 

In January 2026, the UK Government published a consultation draft of its Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill (E&W). This introduces a revised version of the existing (but barely used) commonhold form of tenure; enables imposing it as the future default legal framework on almost all new flats; makes conversion of existing developments from leasehold to commonhold easier, though with fewer improvements to enfranchisement (notably the cost) than campaigners hoped; caps existing long leasehold round rents at £250 a year, reducing to a peppercorn after 40 years; and replaces forfeiture with a new enforcement system as the sanction for breach of covenant. Not all the potential ongoing management issues on the table earlier (managing agents, insurance fees etc) have been included. A linked high-level Guide summarises the Bill’s proposals and the underlying policies; with a public consultation alongside on possible exemptions to the principle that all new residential units not sold freehold should use commonhold. 

In February 2026, the House of Commons Library published Hannah Cromarty’s note: Leasehold Reform in England and Wales: What’s Happening and When?. In May 2026, the Commons cross-party Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee published its report on Pre-legislative Scrutiny of the Draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill:

[T]he draft bill would make a significant step towards giving leasehold homeowners greater control of their buildings, but... the final bill requires several changes and additions to meet leaseholders’ expectations and previous government pledges. 

The MHCLG has not yet responded to the Committee report (August 2026), nor has the Bill yet been introduced into Parliament. To campaigners’ disappointment, the Government appears to accept that the planned scope of reform before the next General Election does not include banning leasehold for the sale of most new flats, let alone converting all existing long residential leaseholds to commonhold. However, the currently proposed changes are intended to make establishing an RTM company, enfranchisement and voluntary transformation from leasehold to commonhold more straightforward, faster and cheaper; consultation is underway (Summer 2026) on aspects of the leasehold enfranchisement valuation rates to be used when those provisions in LFRA 2024 (E&W) come into force, as well as on the allocation of costs.