Last month, seven lenders pledged to cover the cost of making existing EWS1 cladding forms publicly available through the Fire Industry Association (FIA) Building Safety Information Portal.
Having a standardised measure in place such as the EWS1 form forces the design team to think about implementing risk measures early on in the project, according to Daniel Netzer, lending manager at Blend Network.
As a result, Netzer believes this minimises the risk of related unknown costs creeping up during the term of the loan.
Last month, seven lenders pledged to cover the cost of making existing EWS1 cladding forms publicly available through the Fire Industry Association (FIA) Building Safety Information Portal.
The lenders are Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, Santander and TSB.
Netzer said: “Historically a lot of the fire regulation elements would be covered by the architect/building control.
“This meant that there was a risk of elements being picked up in later stages through the design/build period.”
He went on to say that this resulted in unpredicted cost/time implications, thus putting the project at risk of going over budget and time, which increased the risk of shortfalls in funding and terms being too short.
Netzer added: “Given the constant increase in building material prices, it is always beneficial to minimise the risk of unknown build elements which might come up during the build.”
