Aviva’s position and approach on the important area of fire safety in residential apartment buildings.
Page updated February 2025
Aviva’s asset management business, Aviva Investors, manages the Aviva Investors REaLM Ground Rent Fund (the Fund).
The Fund owns around 1,000 residential apartment buildings across England and Wales, some of which are affected by cladding and other fire safety issues.
Neither Aviva Plc nor Aviva Investors own the Fund or its buildings which are instead owned by UK company pension schemes for the ultimate benefit of some 350,000 individual retirees and pension savers.
Aviva Plc and Aviva Investors:
- fully support the principle introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022 that ordinary leaseholders should be protected from the costs of addressing historic building safety issues.
- consider that developer funded remediation is the fairest solution; and
- share the aim of the Government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan to increase the pace of appropriate and proportionate remediation.
As a responsible building owner, the Fund:
- observes the requirements of the Building Safety Act 2022 which focuses on managing building safety risks rising from fire spread or structural collapse in buildings of five storeys or 11m or more and specifies if and when leaseholders may be asked to contribute towards the cost of addressing such risks (known as the ‘leaseholder protections’).
- is collaborating with some of the UK’s largest residential developers who, through the Government’s self-remediation contract, are responsible for remedying all life critical fire-safety defects in buildings they developed. This collaboration in respect of those buildings which the Fund now owns is ongoing and directly contributes to the remediation process.
- is separately working with a small number of builders who, having built some of the Fund’s remaining buildings which have been found to have building safety issues, have offered to do the right thing and remedy them at their cost.
- is assisting Residents’ Management Companies (RMCs) and Right to Manage Companies (RTMs) of buildings who seek its help. RMCs and RTMs are responsible for overseeing the remediation of fire safety issues in the buildings they control. Assistance has been provided on funding applications along with technical matters and opening up a dialogue with unresponsive developers and contractors
- will, as and when appropriate, use the legal tools in the Building Safety Act 2022 to claim the costs of remedying building safety risks from developers who are either yet to sign the Government’s self-remediation contract or otherwise accept responsibility for them.
- has/will ensure that buildings under its direct control (being buildings without an RMC or RTM) are registered for any applicable government funding scheme (such as the Building Safety Fund/Cladding Safety Scheme which offer funding for the costs of addressing life safety fire risks associated with cladding on residential buildings above 11m) where that building’s developer is unable or unwilling to address the risks covered by that funding scheme.
- continues to arrange fire risk assessments for the Fund’s directly controlled buildings of all heights (being buildings without an RMC or RTM) as and when required under applicable fire safety legislation.
This web page is periodically updated.