Leaseholders facing the prospect of huge bills to remove unsafe cladding will be offered valuable insights into the possible implications of the Building Safety Act at a free webinar hosted by Bishop & Sewell.

On Wednesday May 11 at 2pm the London law firm will present a free Leasehold Question Time webinar addressing the subject of the forthcoming Building Safety Act, which will cover questions surrounding cladding and building safety. 

Mark Chick, senior partner and head of the landlord and tenant team at Bishop & Sewell, will be joined by Barrister Justin Bates of Landmark Chambers to provide attendees with an update on the Act, which has now passed into law, and the implications for leaseholders. 

A Q&A session will also give attendees the chance to ask questions. 

Commenting on the upcoming seminar, Chick says: “The Building Safety Act 2021/2022 has been through a number of changes since it was first drafted in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.”

“Given that the issue of unsafe cladding has caused misery to so many leaseholders, we have been following the development of this bill closely, along with building safety and cladding issues more generally.”

February this year saw a change of direction as the government listed a number of amendments to make the building industry pay for some building safety remediation costs.

Chick says these amendments now mean that freeholders will meet some of the costs of non-cladding safety issues in buildings over 11m in height and that leaseholders should not pay for cladding costs in buildings over 11m. 
 
“The government has also set aside large funds to remediate cladding in buildings of over 18m in height. In its recent amendments, the government has also proposed the removal of the proposed role of the ‘Building Safety Manager’,” he adds.
 
“This Leasehold Question Time session is essential for anyone affected by the ongoing cladding crisis. As this new Act becomes law, we realise that issues concerning building safety and cladding could have very significant financial consequences for many thousands of leaseholders, who will doubtless have questions about how the new legislation will affect them.” 

The session is free to attend but requires a pre-register. Interested parties can register here.