Propertymark has welcomed the UK Government’s intention to carry forward many of the key aims the membership body highlighted, as part of its consultation response on the proposed Building Safety Levy.
The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced powers to impose a levy on certain new residential buildings in England, to raise revenue to be spent on building safety, which the government consulted on.
The UK’s leading membership body for property agents expressed strong support for the levy to be discounted for brownfield sites, for the levy to be set at different rates to reflect local authority boundaries and land values, and for certain developments such as affordable housing and NHS hospitals to be exempt from the levy.
Propertymark also welcomed an exemption for residential unit of less than ten units to support small and medium developers.
Propertymark is seeking clarity on how the government intends to impose sanctions on developers who do not comply with the levy and suggested a series of measures depending on the severity including stop notices, fines and exclusion from future permitted development rights.
The membership body has also pledged to continue to engage with the UK Government’s plans to introduce the levy, by responding to the technical consultation on the collection process, disputes and appeals and further exclusions. Tim Thomas, Policy and Campaigns Officer at Propertymark said:
“We welcome the proposal for the introduction of a Building Safety Levy, which will complement the UK Government’s measures to ensure that the burden of paying to fix historical building safety defects does not fall on leaseholders.
However, the levy should be implemented to ensure that those developers with the broadest shoulders, who contribute towards the highest levels of development, contribute more than small and medium developers. This is an opportunity to start the conversation on levelling the playing field in a fairer system of development control.”
