Part 12: Miscellaneous Section 243: Qualifying leases under the Building Safety Act 2022 Background
Prior to the commencement of this section, most of the leaseholder protections in Part 5 of and Schedule 8 to the Building Safety Act 2022 only applied to long leases of dwellings that were granted before 14 February 2022. These are called ‘qualifying leases’ under the Building Safety Act. This meant that, where leaseholders were granted leases after 14 February 2022 to replace their qualifying leases, those new leases were not in scope of the protections.
	To rectify this issue, this section amends section 119 of the Building Safety Act 2022 by providing that a "connected replacement lease" is also a qualifying lease, and inserts into that Act a new section 119A which defines "connected replacement lease". A connected replacement lease is a qualifying lease even though it was granted on or after 14 February 2022 so long as it meets the other conditions in the section.
	Now, where a leaseholder has extended their qualifying lease, varied their qualifying lease to add property to the lease or has replaced their former qualifying lease with an entirely new lease, that extended/varied/new lease will be in scope of the statutory protections by virtue of this section. The permitted maximum (capping leaseholder contributions) and all other provisions in relation to the statutory protections provided by the Act will apply to the new lease (as if a new lease had not been granted).
	The protections will apply even if there are successive replacement leases. This is described as a ‘chain of qualifying leases’ in new section 119A. This is where, for example, a qualifying leaseholder under the Building Safety Act extends their lease (first replacement lease) and a few years later adds a parking space to their flat and is thus granted another new lease (second replacement lease). The protections will apply to all of these leases as if there was a single long lease, provided the conditions in the new section 119A are met.
	This section has retrospective effect from 14 February 2022. This means that, where leaseholders have varied or extended their previously qualifying leases since that date, their new lease is also in scope of the statutory protections. This section will also override any new leases that contain terms inferior to the statutory protections.