Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill: business and regulatory impact assessment

Options

16. Option 1 – Introduce legislation to enable the Cladding Remediation Programme

17. Option 2 – Do Nothing

Sectors and Groups Affected

18. The sectors and groups affected by the Bill, and therefore the Programme, include:

• Homeowners
• Residents
• Commercial premises owners (where the premises are located within a building within the scope of the Programme
• Insurers
• Mortgage Lenders
• Developers

Option 1

19. Homeowners and residents, as well as commercial premises owners, in buildings within the scope of the Programme may be exposed to a risk to human life that is (directly or indirectly) created or exacerbated by the building’s external wall cladding system, as well as the consequential negative impacts which can currently exist in relation to the buying, selling, and re-mortgaging of relevant flatted residential properties in Scotland.

20. Insurers and Mortgage Lenders can be reluctant to insure or lend on buildings which may be subject to increased fire risk from problematic cladding.

21. Developers may be concerned about risk to those residing in their properties and reputational damage if they are unable to remediate their buildings.

Option 2

22. Experience gained from the Programme has shown that a number of issues that will be addressed by the Bill have delayed work to remediate buildings.

23. Circumstances where universal consent to works in a building proved difficult to obtain caused delays to remediation work. Such delays can mean that residents are living for longer in buildings with potentially unsafe cladding. The powers in the Bill on consent will help address these delays.

24. Without the Cladding Assurance Register which is being introduced by the Bill, and the process behind it of a Single Building Assessment and any required remediation works, property owners may continue to find it challenging to re-mortgage, insure or sell their homes. Insurers and mortgage lenders would likewise lack assurance about the safety status of a building.