Please note, this document was reissued in July 2024 as a professional standard. It was previously published in March 2021 as a guidance note. The regulatory requirements remain the same.
This professional standard is intended to support valuers undertaking valuations for secured lending purposes on domestic residential blocks of flats in the UK.
It has been produced to help valuers understand when an EWS1 form should be required due to visible cladding. Whilst specifically targeted for UK valuers, the guidance will be useful for all stakeholders involved in the buying and selling of residential properties with cladding.
Following consultation with the fire safety industry, insurers and lenders, it provides criteria that can be used by valuers during a standard valuation inspection to identify buildings where remediation work to cladding for fire safety purposes, that may materially affect the value of the property, is likely to be required.
It is not intended to be, nor should it ever be used as, a substitute for or part of a professional life safety fire risk assessment of any building. The EWS1 form is not a safety certificate and the fact that an EWS1 form is not required for a particular building does not mean that the building may not require some form of remediation in the future.
A supplementary information paper has also been produced to increase surveyor’s knowledge of typical external wall cladding systems for building types that may be considered in the ‘External Wall Fire Review’ process.
This standard is effective from 5 April 2021.
Our video guide to the guidance note
Downloads
Published date: 15 March 2021
Published date: 05 March 2021
Published date: 19 December 2021
Criteria where an EWS1 is required
A valuer should always have a rationale to justify the request for an EWS1 form. Our interactive decision tree will take you through the criteria covered in the guidance note to help you arrive at a decision.
These criteria are guidance and professional judgement will need to be applied.
Case studies
The following case studies are representative samples, however each building needs to be considered on an individual basis.
View all case studies
The buildings in these case studies are used only as images to demonstrate the application of the EWS1 requirement criteria from the valuer's perspective, and do not represent fire safety advice on these or similar buildings, which need to be considered on a case by case basis.