Selling a property with cladding

For some properties across Scotland, wall cladding can raise issues when looking to buy or sell. The tragic fire in Grenfell Tower in London in 2017 highlighted that unsafe cladding was used in some buildings across the UK.

In Scotland, the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act was introduced to help give powers to Scottish Ministers to assess and remediate certain types of buildings with unsafe cladding and identify a register to record that a building’s cladding has been assessed. This has been a detailed and complicated process with fire safety experts, chartered surveyors and building standards officers at the core of the consultation.

The current cladding situation in Scotland

If potentially combustible materials are suspected in a property, then a satisfactory report will be required to be prepared from a member of a suitable qualified organisation.

To allow these properties to be sold and remortgaged, RICS, UK Finance/lenders and other stakeholders have been working on a reporting and certification process.

The future outlook for cladding in Scotland

In an announcement on 25th March 2025, the Scottish Government have launched a Single Open Call process where, property owners - regardless of tenure - can apply for government funding to assess their buildings, with only minor restrictions based on height and age.

The “Single Open Call’ process aims to drive action forward and its first function is to support up to £10m of building assessment in Scotland, using the new ‘Single Building Assessment’ (SBA) process. This is a necessary first step towards any mitigation and remediation needed.

This ‘owner-led’ model will complement the existing developer-led and government-led processes of assessment and remediation, to give the best chance of fixing Scotland’s cladding problems.

For homebuyers and sellers who have been affected by this issue or are concerned it might affect them, we advise them to get in touch with their solicitor to find out more.