External wall fire review process forms, known as EWS1 forms, were developed by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and are used as part of the valuation process for high-rise residential buildings with cladding.
Seven mortgage lenders provide EWS1 data to the department and these represent most of the lending market, according to the data release published on 17 February. This is the second time the Department for Leveling Up has published EWS1 lender data on mortgage valuations for flats.
mortgage valuations
The data show that of the 54,000 mortgage valuations by these lenders for flats in the UK, 9 percent required an EWS1 form in December, up from 7 percent in October. There is some height-based data available in this release. For the last quarter of 2021, using data from three of the seven lenders, the department shows that 27 percent of valuations for flats in buildings 4-6 storeys high required an EWS1 form. This is up from 23 percent in the previous quarter. In buildings over seven storeys, the figure rises to 50 percent.
The department urges caution as not all lenders provide a breakdown based on height and the way lenders categorize the data varies. This means it is hard to make comparisons over time. According to the Department, future data releases will aim to publish consistent height brackets of 1-4 storeys, 5-6 storeys, and 7+ storeys.