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<p>The Government is clear that those responsible for historical building safety defects
must pay to put them right. The Building Safety Act 2022 brings forward robust and
far-reaching legal protections for leaseholders from historical building safety costs.
The leaseholder protection provisions eradicate the idea that the first port of call
to pay to fix historical safety defects should be leaseholders. Where those directly
responsible (e.g. developers) cannot be held to account, building owners and landlords
are now the first port of call to pay for historical safety defects, not leaseholders.</p><p>The
Act makes it clear who is liable to pay for the remediation of historical building
safety defects. The Act sets out in law where the liability sits, and developers,
building owners and landlords must meet their obligations. Besides the leaseholder
protection measures, there is already a plan for the remediation of unsafe cladding
- developers will fix their own buildings, and funding will continue to be available
via the Building Safety Fund, as well as a new scheme for buildings between 11-18
metres.</p><p>Where it is not possible to identify those directly responsible for
historical building safety defects, the protections spread the costs of decades of
malpractice equitably across the system. Even where costs are shared with leaseholders
up to the maximum capped account, building owner and landlords are liable for a share
of the remainder, in accordance with the regulations on apportionment. The Act also
contains enforcement powers for those circumstances where landlords and building owners
do not comply with the leaseholder protection measures.</p><p>We want building owners
and landlords to be able to pursue those responsible for defective work and recover
costs to fund remediation works. That is why the Building Safety Act includes an ambitious
toolkit of measures to allow those responsible for defective work to be pursued. The
Act has retrospectively extended the limitation period under section 1 of the Defective
Premises Act 1972 from 6 to 30 years. The Act extends the reach of civil liability
to associated companies of developers, including trusts, to ensure that some of the
largest businesses in the sector who have used shell companies and other complex corporate
structures can be pursed for contributions. The Act has also created a cause of action
which will allow manufacturers of construction products to be pursued where defective
or mis-sold products have been used in buildings.</p><p>The leaseholder protections
in the Building Safety Act came into force on 28 June 2022. On 28 June, the Government
published a guide to building safety costs in England, which gave advice on Frequently
Asked Questions, to explain these legal changes. The explanatory notes have been updated
following Royal Assent and will be published shortly. The government also intends
to publish more detailed guidance on how the leasehold protections work in practice,
now that the accompanying secondary legislation has come into force.</p>
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