Last year I wrote a piece for Property Week regarding Michael Gove's amendments to the Building Safety Act including the governments powers to "block planning permission and building control sign-off on developments, effectively preventing them from building and selling new homes" if developers did not contribute to the national remediation fund. This is a fund set up to pay for the remediation of defective buildings following the Grenfell Tower fire. 

Last week Gove wrote to developers with the deadline for entering into the Self-Remediation Terms and Deed of Bilateral Contract. The final form version of the contract was also published this week. The contract will require a developer to use reasonable endeavours to undertake a review of and identify any buildings requiring remediation works and carry out such works at their own cost. 

The deadline for entering into the contract is 13 March 2023 (six weeks from the date of the letter).

The letter went on to announce that the government will bring into law a 'Responsible Actors Scheme' pursuant to the Building Safety Act which will block developers' ability to implement a planning permission where they have declined to enter into the scheme. The names of any developers failing to do so will also be made public. 

The consequences of not signing up to the scheme are severe and so the government's letter should not be treated as junk mail.