In a GOV.UK statement published on 27 October 2026, the government said the Remediation of Unsafe Cladding Bill will be used to widen protection for leaseholders facing large bills for historic building and fire-safety defects. The announcement was made during the Bill's second reading in Parliament and was presented as part of a broader package of leaseholder reform. The immediate policy aim is to close gaps left by the current protection regime and to shift more of the financial burden away from residents who did not cause the defects. Ministers also said the package would give the state stronger tools to secure remediation where progress has stalled.
The government's starting point is that many leaseholders are already protected from paying for certain historic defects, but coverage is not complete. Existing protections under the Building Safety Act are tied closely to the qualifying position on 14 February 2022, including whether the flat was the owner's only or main home at that point and how many UK properties the owner held. That fixed date was intended to prevent the rules being manipulated once protections became known. The effect, however, is that some later buyers and some ownership structures sit outside the scheme, even where the current resident had no role in creating the underlying safety problem.
One of the clearest issues identified by the government concerns buyers who acquire a flat after 14 February 2022 as their only or main home. Under the present rules, that buyer can still miss out on protection if the previous owner did not qualify on the relevant date, because the protected or unprotected status of the lease passes to future purchasers. Ministers said they are exploring how to narrow that gap. If that change is added to the legislation, it would reduce the risk that a later owner-occupier inherits historic remediation liability because of a predecessor's circumstances rather than their own.
A second measure is aimed at leaseholders in collectively owned and enfranchised buildings. In those blocks there is no separate freeholder, and residents are therefore not covered by the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act in the same way as leaseholders in more conventional arrangements. The government said new public funding will help with remediation of internal high-risk and high-cost fire-safety defects in those buildings. For resident-controlled blocks, that is a material policy change because support would no longer depend entirely on a legal structure that excludes them from the present protection model.
The announcement also addresses leaseholders with more than one property who face non-cladding building safety costs they did not cause. At present, the protection rules generally apply where the owner held no more than three UK properties on 14 February 2022. The government now plans to raise that threshold to six. That would bring within scope a further group of owners who held four to six properties on the qualifying date and are currently exposed to costs for non-cladding defects. The proposal is framed as a targeted extension of the existing rules rather than a full rewrite of the qualifying lease test.
The Bill is also intended to change the position for manufacturers linked to historic unsafe cladding and insulation products. According to the government, a new scheme will require construction product manufacturers to contribute towards the cost of putting affected buildings right, with powers for the state to recover those contributions at scale. This is one of the more significant enforcement changes in the package. Remediation policy has so far focused mainly on developers, building owners and government funding. The proposed recovery power would add a direct route for ministers to pursue manufacturers where their products are connected to unsafe buildings.
Enforcement against those responsible for unsafe buildings is due to become tougher as well. The government said the Bill will place a legal duty on responsible parties to carry out remediation, with criminal penalties and fines of up to £500,000 for failure to act. Authorities would also be able to step in and arrange the work where refusal is persistent. For leaseholders, freeholders, resident management companies and manufacturers, the position is not yet complete. The government said further detail on eligibility, funding and the manufacturer contribution scheme will be added to the Bill as it moves through Parliament or published separately in due course. The direction of policy is now clearer, but the final legal effect will depend on the text that follows.