On 29 April 2021, the government’s Fire Safety Bill became law. The passing of this bill means that building owners or managers of multi-occupied residential buildings must conduct a fire risk assessment for each building and take steps to reduce the risk of fire spreading. As a responsible landlord, Triathlon Homes has already taken several steps to ensure the safety of our residents.

East Village Management Limited (EVML) currently undertakes an annual fire risk assessment for each block. These assessments will consider the findings of the external wall assessments which have been carried out across East Village.  EVML has also registered all eligible buildings for the Government’s Building Safety Fund, which is intended to cover the costs of works related to fixing defects in the external wall system.

However, other defects are not covered by this fund and the bill passed earlier this week did not include measures to prevent these costs from being passed on to leaseholders. We recognise that many of you are disappointed with this news and we share your frustration. We are doing all we can to protect leaseholders from picking up the costs of repair and remediation. We will exhaust every possible avenue available to us, including seeking to recover costs from the original developers.

Our Board members have already written to Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to express our concerns. Although we welcome some of the government’s proposed measures, such as a new tax on developers, this does not go far enough to fund all of the remedial work that is required.

In the absence of further government support, we may have to take the difficult decision to recoup some costs from leaseholders – in line with legal obligations in their lease. In the meantime, we will continue to make the case to the government that leaseholders should not have to pay to fix problems that they did not cause.

We will continue to keep you updated of any further developments of this issue. If you have any further questions, please contact moc.semohnolhtairtnull@ytefasgnidliub.