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<p>We are clear that building owners and industry should make buildings safe without
passing on costs to leaseholders, and leaseholders living in their own medium and
high-rise buildings should not have to pay to remediate historic cladding defects
that are no fault of their own. That is why we are bringing forth statutory protections
in the Building Safety Bill to ensure leaseholders are protected. Developers and freeholders
should not be passing on cladding remediation costs to leaseholders in flats over
11 metres through increases to the service charge.</p><p>The Government believes very
strongly that service charges should be transparent and communicated effectively.
The law is clear that service charges and any increase in costs must be reasonable
and, where costs relate to work or services, the work or services must be of a reasonable
standard. We established an independent working group chaired by Lord Best to raise
standards across the property sector, which also considered improvements to the transparency
of service charges. The working group published its final report to Government (available
at: <a href="https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fpublications%2Fregulation-of-property-agents-working-group-report&data=04%7C01%7CBSP_PQ%40levellingup.gov.uk%7Ca0a36b92fe87408bba7e08d9f6f4ecdc%7Cbf3468109c7d43dea87224a2ef3995a8%7C0%7C0%7C637812354065347225%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=qo8YeNv5EDyBeFewkleh14wfhg%2FyPMTN3P8BctOa89o%3D&reserved=0"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulation-of-property-agents-working-group-report</a>)
and we are considering the report’s recommendations.</p>
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