Experts are predicting that the exclusion of large scale landlords from cladding relief may lead to significant delays in some safety work being undertaken.

The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has made clear that its proposals for flat owners to pay no more than a cap of £10,000 - or £15,000 in London - will extend to small scale buy to let investors with one or two units.

However, it will not extend to portfolio landlords with more than two units.

Experts have told the mainstream media that in many buildings around the country portfolio landlords make up a significant proportion of leaseholders. If those landlords cannot afford to pay for the remedial work removing unsafe cladding, the work on the entire block will be delayed. 

For those owner-occupiers or small scale landlords with a unit in the same block, the current stalemate would continue - those properties would remain unmortgageable, unsellable and devalued until all works were complete.

Justin Bates, of Landmark Chambers barristers, has told the Daily Telegraph: “I think it will get more difficult to sell because the amends will impact banks’ willingness to lend against homes in blocks where some flats will benefit and some won’t … It is really, really going to slow this down.”

And prominent property lawyer David Smith, of JMW Solicitors, warns that freeholders burdened with high remediation costs are likely to try to extract as much money as possible from the portfolio landlords - adding to the likely delays.

The Telegraph also quotes Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, as saying:“Without a change of course, landlords will be left with bills they cannot afford and work to remove dangerous cladding risks being slowed down completely.”

But some experts say the proposal as it stands means that a buyer purchasing a property from a portfolio landlord would take on a lease that had no cladding cap protections attached to it - even if the buyer was an owner occupier.

Via @LandlordToday