Moved by
Lord Young of Cookham
282ND: After Clause 226, insert the following new Clause—
“Non-Qualifying Leases under the Building Safety Act 2022
(1) Section 119 of the Building Safety Act 2022 (meaning of “qualifying lease” and “the qualifying time”) is amended as follows.
(2) After section 119(1) insert—
“(1A) This section only applies to a dwelling if it is a dwelling in a relevant building and the relevant building has one or more relevant defects.”
(3) After section 119(4)(b) insert—
“(ba) where a person (“T”) was a tenant under a lease of, or had a freehold interest in, a dwelling and at the qualifying time T was a tenant in common of that dwelling, T is not deemed to own that dwelling unless T’s share under the tenancy in common was more than 50%.”
(4) After section 119(4) insert—
“(5) Notwithstanding anything in this section:
(a) a tenant is always deemed to own a qualifying lease for each of the first three dwellings that tenant owns; and
(b) a landlord must cease to make any distinction between qualifying leases and non-qualifying leases once all work to remedy relevant defects in a relevant building is completed.””
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment secures parity between non-qualifying and qualifying leaseholders under the Building Safety Act 2022. It extends protection to 3 properties for all types of leaseholder. It also amends the Building Safety Act to exclude shares in a property of 50% or less from being counted as wholly owned. Lastly, it removes the distinction between leaseholders once relevant defects are remedied.