Is anyone at immediate risk?
Follow current fire and building-safety instructions. Do not delay urgent professional action while a payment dispute is checked.
Cladding, EWS1 and historic building-safety defects
Stop before treating a safety cost as an ordinary service-charge bill.
Keep urgent life-safety action moving, but separate it from the lease, lender and statutory evidence that may decide who pays.
View the supporting illustration
Separate four questions
Safety, lending and payment are not the same decision.
What does an EWS1 do?
It supports secured-lending valuation of external-wall risk. It is not a building-safety certificate and it does not decide who must pay for work.
Could Schedule 8 apply?
For an English relevant building, establish the qualifying-lease, relevant-defect, developer and landlord facts before treating the lease wording as the whole answer.
What evidence is missing?
Keep the demand, Section 20 record, certificates, assessments, remediation plan and professional advice together.
Problem to supported next step
Use a five-step route that keeps LEASE-iQ® in its proper place.
- 01
Identify the live problem
Life safety, a mortgage valuation, proposed remediation, a service-charge demand and a Section 20 consultation can overlap but need different evidence.
- 02
Collect the building record
Confirm the address, height or storeys, defect description, assessments, notices, planned work and the person issuing the request.
- 03
Use LEASE-iQ for the lease layer
Find repair, service-charge, consultation, access and landlord clauses with the clause and page visible. Do not ask it to certify safety or decide statutory protection.
- 04
Check the statutory and lender layer
Use the official Schedule 8 guidance, required certificates and current lender or RICS process. Keep England and Wales separate.
- 05
Escalate the focused question
Give a building-safety solicitor, suitably qualified surveyor, fire professional or conveyancer the source pack and the exact unresolved issue.
Evidence checklist
Build the pack before anyone states who pays.
Identity and scope
Address, height, storeys, number of dwellings, ownership structure and whether collective enfranchisement or commonhold affects the relevant-building test.
Assessment and work
Fire-risk and external-wall assessments, EWS1 if requested, defect description, remediation specification, programme, funding and current safety instructions.
Lease and qualification
Executed lease, title, ownership at the qualifying date, principal-home and property-ownership facts, leaseholder deed of certificate and sale documents.
Responsibility and certificates
Landlord and developer group, landlord certificate, supporting evidence, demand, invoices, Section 20 notices, observations and replies.
Use LEASE-iQ for the lease evidence
Find the repair and charging clauses without mistaking them for the whole legal answer.
Leaseholders and buyers can check one lease free. Property teams can request a free month for up to 100 leases.
Choose the right access route