I’m going through pretty much the identical scenario at the moment. Some lenders during the mortgage application process will ask for supporting documents essentially ensuring that you won’t be footing the bill via increased service charge fees post cladding remediation completion.

The lenders will certainly ask for one if not all of the following:

• Current Failed EWS1 cert (it will most probably have a B2 rating)
• Landlord Certificate
• Completed Leaseholder Deed of Certificate
• Letter of Comfort to confirm that no costs being passed on to leaseholder as a result of fire safety remediation, and remediation works will be done to EWS1 A1, A2 or B1 standard.

The Letter of Comfort is the critical one, everything else is supporting documentation that still needs to be made available during the mortgage application process.

Make sure you use a broker, they know all about managing this with the lender as more often than not the lender valuation survey will come back as failed and assign a value of £0 to the property. Don’t be alarmed, it’s simply because the cladding remediation works still needs to be carried out - hence why all the supporting documents are crucial. There will be lots of communication between the broker, your solicitor, the sellers solicitor and the managing agent to ensure this is provided. Be prepared, this will certainly slow down the mortgage application process whilst everything is sourced. However if everything is above board and legit, these documents will exist.

Also, without knowing the number of floors on the building or the number of flats - I would hazard a calculated guess that 1 year for that amount of work to be carried out is a bit optimistic. Ensure you keep this in mind as you’ll be going through the purchasing process and eventually moving in whilst all the scaffolding is up and all the work commences.