A new list of exempt flats means many owners will finally be able to escape the trap of unsellable flats.
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has updated its guidance on unsafe cladding following months of consultation with the government and pressure groups. The aim is to reduce the number of owners required to complete EWS1 forms, despite owning very low risk, even zero risk, properties.
The RICS is now being far more specific about which properties require a formal safety assessment, with a key focus on flats with balconies.
In short, ‘no flats without either cladding or vertically stacked balconies containing combustible materials’ will now have to complete an EWS1 assessment.
Furthermore, no buildings of four storeys or fewer, regardless of whether they have cladding or balconies will require an EWS1. This is unless the cladding contains the very most flammable materials: ACM, MCM, or HPL.
As well as helping many owners avoid unnecessary inconvenience by rendering safe properties worthless until they complete an EWS1, this change to the rules also helps free up vital time and resources to assess and make safe the most dangerous highrise buildings.
The speed at which EWS1s can be completed should ramp up in the coming months thanks to the RICS now training almost 500 new assessors.
Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, has said that this move should mean that almost half a million homeowners will no longer need an assessment.
The New Rules In Full
Following this change, the advice from RICS is as follows:
For buildings over six storeys an EWS1 form should be required where:
- There is cladding or curtain wall glazing on the building or
- there are balconies which stack vertically above each other and either both the balustrades and decking are constructed with combustible materials (e.g. timber) or the decking is constructed with combustible materials and the balconies are directly linked by combustible material.
For buildings of five or six storeys an EWS1 form should be required where:
- There is a significant amount of cladding on the building (for the purpose of this guidance, approximately one quarter of the whole elevation estimated from what is visible standing at ground level is a significant amount) or
- there are ACM, MCM or HPL panels on the building** or
- there are balconies which stack vertically above each other and either both the balustrades and decking are constructed with combustible materials (e.g. timber), or the decking is constructed with combustible materials and the balconies are directly linked by combustible materials.
For buildings of four storeys or fewer an EWS1 form should be required where:
- There are ACM, MCM or HPL panels on the building.
