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The External Wall System (EWS1) form is an essential requirement for the sale or remortgage of a qualifying building in England, these typically being required for high rise blocks of flats. They were introduced following the tragic Grenfell Tower disaster and provide an assessment of the external wall safety of the buildings. The form was originally intended to apply to external wall systems for buildings above 18 meters in height and was created to ensure residential buildings over that height could be assessed for safety to allow lenders to offer mortgages. Government advice changed in January 2020 resulting in all residential buildings of any height potentially falling within scope.
Following the introduction of this requirement, The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (“RICS”) published information on the minimum qualifications and experience required to sign off an EWS1. This restrictive criteria excluded most surveyors and fire assessors meaning it was difficult to obtain a certificate. Due to the high number of qualifying buildings and shortage of accredited assessors, locating an assessor permitted to sign off these certificates became expensive and often extremely delayed due to assessor backlogs, thus affecting many conveyancing transactions.
How have rogue assessors complicated matters?
Problematically, some individuals took advantage of the lack of assessor availability, as has been highlighted by the recently publicised scandal involving a fire engineer, Adam Kiziak and his firm Tri Fire, who has been in the spotlight for reportedly fraudulently issued certificates without the relevant credentials to do so. Accordingly, Mr Kiziak was made subject to disciplinary sanctions and has now been expelled by the Institution of Fire Engineers.
Whilst there is no official register of EWS1 certificates, analysis by the Building Safety Register discovered that 410 of the 1,139 EWS1s signed off between March 2020 and the end of 2021 were issued by Tri Fire.
As a result, some lenders, including Nationwide and NatWest, are reported to be withdrawing mortgage offers issued to buyers purchasing properties with certificates signed off by Mr Kiziak. This is causing significant problems to sellers in terms of losing purchasers, mortgage offers being withdrawn, delayed transactions generally and other implications relating to huge down valuations of their properties and the expense of arranging for a new assessment for a valid certificate, sometimes at their own expense.
Conclusion – what should sellers do?
The risk of rogue surveyors has created a challenging landscape for affected sellers involving property devaluations, legal and financial obstacles and transactional delays. Sellers are advised to engage with their freeholders and managing agents and be proactive in verifying the legitimacy of their EWS1 certificates otherwise they risk falling victim to individuals such as Mr Kiziak.
If you are looking to sell or refinance a flat in a block which has an EWS1, we highly recommend that you check who signed the certificate and verify their credentials.
If you are unsure if your block requires an EWS1, or if you believe your EWS1 may have been fraudulently issued, please reach out to our team of legal real estate experts who will be happy to assist. You can contact us by email or call +44(0)3333 231580.
