Cladding and EWS1, what a flat buyer must check before offering
To check cladding and building-safety status before you offer on a flat, do three things in order. First, work out roughly whether the block is tall enough or has external-wall materials that put it in scope. As a rough orientation, buildings of about five storeys or around 11 metres and above attract the most scrutiny, though the exact thresholds depend on the building and should be confirmed with a solicitor. Second, search the public Building Safety Fund remediation register and the EPC and Land Registry records to see what is already known. Third, ask the selling agent and the managing agent, in writing through your solicitor, for the EWS1 form, any fire-risk assessment, and any remediation plan with costs. The honest position is that the binding answer lives with the managing agent and your conveyancer, not in any public dataset. A clean public search does not prove a building is safe. It only shows that nothing has surfaced yet.
Why cladding became a mortgage and money problem after Grenfell
After the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, lenders and insurers reassessed the risk of external walls on flats, and the market changed for buyers in ways that still bite today. Mortgage lenders started refusing to lend, or lending only at reduced amounts, on flats in buildings where the fire safety of the external wall could not be evidenced. At the same time, leaseholders in affected blocks faced demands for very large sums to remove dangerous cladding and to pay for interim measures such as waking watch patrols.
For you as a buyer this creates two distinct risks. One is a mortgage risk, where a valuer marks the building down or the lender declines, and the sale falls through or the price has to drop. The other is a money risk, where you inherit a leaseholder's share of a remediation bill or ongoing safety costs through the service charge. The two often travel together. A building that cannot evidence its wall safety is both harder to mortgage and more likely to be carrying unresolved costs.
Which buildings this actually affects, height and external-wall risk in plain terms
Not every flat is exposed. The scrutiny concentrates on buildings of a certain height and on walls built with certain materials. In broad terms, the tallest buildings carry the heaviest regulation, and a common dividing line you will see referenced is around 18 metres or about seven storeys for the strictest rules, with a second tier from roughly 11 metres or about five storeys upward attracting lender and EWS1 attention. Below about 11 metres an EWS1 is not usually required as a routine matter. Treat all of these heights as orientation, not as a precise legal test, and confirm the exact thresholds for a specific block with your solicitor.
Height is only half of it. The other half is what the external wall is made of. Aluminium composite material panels of the type involved at Grenfell are the headline concern, but timber balconies, render systems, and certain insulation can also trigger questions. A four-storey block with a combustible balcony and render can raise more issues than a taller block of plain brick. So the question is never only how tall the building is. It is also what the wall is made of, and whether anyone competent has inspected it.
What an EWS1 form is, what it covers, and what it deliberately does not
The EWS1 form, short for External Wall System 1, is a standard form completed by a suitably qualified professional to record an assessment of a building's external wall fire safety. Where lenders want one, it is the document that lets a valuation proceed. An EWS1 covers the building as a whole, not your individual flat, and one valid form usually serves every flat in that block.
It is important to understand what the form does and does not say. An EWS1 records the outcome of the wall assessment, including whether remedial work is needed. It is not a safety certificate, it is not a guarantee, and it does not by itself tell you who pays for any work it identifies. A form can come back showing that remediation is required, which is information, not reassurance. It also has a limited shelf life in practice, because assessments can be superseded as a building's works progress. So ask three things about any EWS1 you are shown. What rating did it give, what is its date, and does it call for further work.
The Building Safety Act 2022 in general terms, protections and why they depend on the building and your lease
The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced a framework intended to shift more of the cost of historical fire-safety defects away from leaseholders and toward developers and building owners, and it created leaseholder protections for certain qualifying leases. In general terms, the Act limits or removes some remediation costs that a qualifying leaseholder can be charged for relevant defects, subject to conditions about the building and about the lease itself.
Whether those protections apply to the specific flat you are buying depends on the details. As a broad guide, the protections concern relevant buildings, generally those at least 11 metres or at least five storeys, and a qualifying lease is broadly a long lease that was the leaseholder's home and was granted before the protections took effect in February 2022. Whether your lease qualifies can also turn on the developer's status and on whether a leaseholder deed of certificate is in place. This is exactly the kind of mid-reform, fact-specific area where a general guide should stop and a solicitor should start. Do not assume the Act covers you, and do not assume it does not. Ask your conveyancer to confirm the current position for this building and this lease in writing.
Public signals you can check yourself, the Building Safety Fund remediation register and what it tells you
Before you spend money on surveys, you can check several public records yourself. The Building Safety Fund remediation register, published on gov.uk, lists buildings that have applied for or are progressing through government remediation funding for unsafe cladding. If the block appears on it, that is a strong signal that a known cladding issue exists and that some remediation pathway is in motion. Search the building name and the postcode.
Wrap the rest of the public picture around that. The gov.uk EPC register shows the energy certificate, which is valid for ten years and rated on a band from A to G. It confirms the building exists in official records and can hint at wall construction. HM Land Registry holds the title and can identify the freeholder and any management company. Companies House lets you look up that management company and read its filings. None of these names the cladding status directly, but together they tell you who controls the building and whether a remediation programme is already on the public record. The limit is real. Absence from the Building Safety Fund register does not mean a building is safe. It may simply mean no funding application was made, or that any costs are being handled another way.
The questions to put to the agent and managing agent before you offer
Once the public search is done, the decisive information comes from people, and you should get it in writing through your solicitor so the answers are on the record. Put these questions to the selling agent and ask them to route the building-specific ones to the managing agent or freeholder.
Is there a valid EWS1 form for this building, what rating does it carry, and what is its date. Is there a current fire-risk assessment and what does it conclude. Has any cladding or external-wall remediation been identified, and if so, is there a costed plan and a timetable. Are there any interim safety measures in place such as a waking watch or a simultaneous-evacuation policy, and who is paying for them, noting that many qualifying leaseholders can no longer be charged for waking-watch costs. Has the building applied to the Building Safety Fund or any developer-funded scheme. Have leaseholders been served, or are they expected to be served, with any demand or major-works notice relating to safety. It is worth knowing the consultation thresholds that protect leaseholders on large bills. Broadly, a landlord must formally consult where qualifying works would cost any one leaseholder more than 250 pounds, or where a long-term agreement would cost any one leaseholder more than 100 pounds a year. Ask whether any such notice has been issued.
When the status cannot be verified, why no news is not the same as safe
Sometimes you will do everything right and still not get a clear answer. The managing agent is slow, there is no EWS1 yet, the fire-risk assessment is not shared, and the public registers are silent. It is tempting to read that silence as reassurance. It is not. An unverified building is an open question, not a clean bill of health.
The practical risk of treating no news as good news is that the gap surfaces at the worst moment, when your lender's valuer asks for an EWS1 that does not exist and the mortgage stalls weeks into the process. So name the uncertainty out loud. If the wall safety cannot be evidenced, write that down as an open risk in your decision, tell your solicitor to keep pressing, and consider making your offer conditional on the documents arriving. Honesty here protects you. A building you cannot verify should be labelled unverified, never assumed safe.
How cladding uncertainty should shape your offer and your timeline
Building-safety status should change two things, what you offer and how long you allow. On price, if there is a known cladding issue without a fully funded and timetabled fix, that is a material risk that belongs in your number or in your conditions. Even where leaseholder protections may apply, the uncertainty itself has a cost in time, mortgageability, and resale. On timeline, build in extra weeks. EWS1 forms, fire-risk assessments, and managing-agent responses can be slow, and a lender's valuer may pause the whole chain until they arrive.
A sensible default is to make any offer on an at-risk block explicitly conditional on seeing a satisfactory EWS1 and remediation position before exchange, and to keep your solicitor instructed to confirm the Building Safety Act position for this specific lease. Price the certainty you can get, condition on the certainty you cannot, and do not let a quiet public record talk you out of asking.
How Flatscope runs this check from a pasted Rightmove link
Flatscope is research software for UK flat buyers. You paste a Rightmove listing and it returns a sourced report covering the verdict, a headline score, and the lease, costs, safety, and sold-price picture, with each figure tied to a public record. For building safety it cross-references the gov.uk Building Safety Fund remediation register alongside the EPC register, HM Land Registry, and Companies House, and it surfaces the public signal it can find for that building plus the exact questions to put to the managing agent before you offer.
The part that matters most here is what it does when the answer is not public. Flatscope says plainly when a building's safety status cannot be verified, rather than implying the building is safe. It is honest about its limits. It covers England and Wales, reads Rightmove links today with other portals in progress, and the binding detail, the EWS1, the fire-risk assessment, the remediation costs, still has to come from the managing agent through your solicitor. The first report is free during early access. Paste your Rightmove link to see the public building-safety signal and the questions to ask, then take those questions to your conveyancer. Reach the team at hello@flatscope.co.uk or https://www.flatscope.co.uk.
Have a flat in mind? Check it before you offer.
Paste the Rightmove link and Flatscope runs this whole check from the public record, with every figure cited. Your first report is free.
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Flatscope is informational software, not regulated financial or legal advice. Where leasehold law is mid-reform, confirm the current position with your solicitor.