Pillar Guide · Updated July 2026
Building Safety Act & Cladding Remediation: A Complete Guide for 2026/27
Millions of leaseholders in England living in buildings with historic cladding or fire-safety defects have been protected, wholly or partly, from footing the bill under the Building Safety Act 2022. This guide explains who qualifies for protection, the £15,000 and £10,000 non-cladding cost caps, waking watch charges, the Building Safety Levy funding the wider remediation programme, and how leaseholders and building owners can enforce action through Remediation Orders and Remediation Contribution Orders.
What Is the Building Safety Act
The Building Safety Act 2022 is the centrepiece of the UK Government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire and the wider building safety crisis it exposed. It created a new Building Safety Regulator, introduced a stricter approvals gateway regime for “higher-risk buildings” (generally 18 metres or seven storeys and above, with at least two residential units), and — most directly relevant to existing leaseholders — introduced sweeping legal protections designed to stop ordinary leaseholders being billed for historic cladding and fire-safety defects that were not their fault.
The protections apply retrospectively to leases and buildings in existence before the Act, reflecting the scale of the crisis affecting many thousands of buildings built or refurbished before stricter fire-safety standards were introduced following Grenfell.
Cladding Remediation Protection
Most leaseholders in buildings above 11 metres (roughly five storeys) are protected from paying anything at all towards the removal or replacement of unsafe cladding, applying the “polluter pays” principle — where the current or a former freeholder or developer is linked to the group that developed the building, or where no such link can be established but the freeholder’s corporate group has more than £2 million net worth per relevant building, that party bears the cost instead.
Leaseholders who own no more than three UK residential properties in total (including their main home) generally cannot be charged anything for cladding remediation in a qualifying building at all, regardless of the freeholder’s financial position — the cost falls to government funding schemes such as the Building Safety Fund or the Cladding Safety Scheme where no responsible developer or sufficiently wealthy freeholder exists.
The Non-Cladding Cost Caps
For non-cladding fire-safety defects — missing fire breaks, defective compartmentation, unsafe balconies and similar issues — qualifying leaseholder contributions are capped rather than eliminated entirely: £15,000 in Greater London and £10,000 elsewhere in England, applied cumulatively over a rolling five-year period measured from 28 June 2022. These caps only apply where the leaseholder’s flat value does not exceed set thresholds set out in regulations under the Act, varying by region (broadly £325,000 in Greater London, tapering to £175,000 in lower-value parts of England).
Leaseholders whose flats exceed the relevant value threshold, or who fall outside qualifying leaseholder status (see below), do not benefit from these caps in the same way and can face a larger, effectively uncapped share of non-cladding remediation costs under the ordinary terms of their lease.
Qualifying Leaseholder Status
A “qualifying lease” is broadly a long residential lease (originally granted for a term of more than 21 years) where, on 14 February 2022, the flat was the leaseholder’s only or principal home, or the leaseholder owned no more than three UK residential properties in total including the affected flat. Leaseholders who fail this test — for example, holding the flat purely as one of several buy-to-let investments — fall outside the leaseholder protections regime and may remain fully liable for remediation costs under their original lease terms, without the benefit of the caps or exemptions described above.
Waking Watch Costs
A waking watch is a temporary interim fire-safety measure — trained personnel patrolling a building around the clock to watch for fire and trigger evacuation if needed — used while unsafe cladding or other serious defects remain unaddressed. Costs are extremely high, frequently tens of thousands of pounds a month for a single block, and were historically passed through to leaseholders via the service charge, causing severe financial hardship in some buildings. Government guidance now encourages building owners to install cheaper, permanent fire alarm systems instead wherever feasible, and waking watch costs increasingly fall within the scope of the leaseholder protection caps and building-owner cost recovery obligations introduced by the Act, though the precise position depends on the specific building and any government funding scheme it is enrolled in.
The Building Safety Levy
The Building Safety Levy is a charge on new residential developments in England, payable by developers when seeking building control approval for most new homes, designed to help fund the wider national programme of historic building safety remediation that government and industry are jointly meeting. It sits alongside the separate, time-limited Residential Property Developer Tax — a surcharge on the largest residential developers’ profits — both intended to ensure the development industry, which built the defective buildings originally, contributes materially to the overall cost of fixing them, rather than leaving the burden solely with individual leaseholders or the general taxpayer.
Remediation Orders and Contribution Orders
A Remediation Order compels the entity responsible for a building — usually the freeholder or landlord — to actually carry out specified remediation works by a deadline set by the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), addressing the physical defect itself. Leaseholders, local authorities, fire and rescue authorities, and the Building Safety Regulator can all apply for one where a building owner is slow or unwilling to act.
A Remediation Contribution Order is different — it is about money, not works, requiring a developer or an associated company to pay towards remediation costs where the tribunal considers it “just and equitable”. The Act specifically allows tribunals to look through corporate structures that might otherwise shield a wealthy parent company from liability for a subsidiary’s development, giving leaseholders and building owners a genuine enforcement route against historically responsible developers who try to avoid paying.
Selling an Affected Flat
Selling a flat in an affected building has become considerably easier since the introduction of the Leaseholder Deed of Certificate and Landlord’s Certificate system, which formally confirms a leaseholder’s protected status and the building’s remediation position to prospective buyers and mortgage lenders. Many lenders previously refused to lend without an EWS1 (External Wall System) fire safety certificate; updated government guidance has narrowed which buildings actually require one, easing the mortgage market for many buyers, though buildings still awaiting remediation, or lacking a clear certificate confirming leaseholder protections, can continue to face valuation and mortgageability difficulties.
What to Do If You Are Being Charged
Request a Landlord’s Certificate, which the freeholder is legally required to provide within four weeks of a written request (or automatically alongside certain service charge demands), setting out whether the leaseholder qualifies for protection and the basis for any charge being sought. If the freeholder fails to provide this, or seeks to charge amounts that appear to exceed the statutory caps or protections, leaseholders can challenge the demand at the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). Free initial guidance is available from the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) for leaseholders unsure whether they qualify or how to respond to a disputed charge.