Cladding registers for property portfolios.

What a cladding register is

A cladding register, also called a façade asset register, is a building-by-building record of the external walls across a portfolio. It records how each building is built, what its walls and cladding are made of, what is known and what is assumed, and the fire risk each building poses. It becomes a single point of truth that you keep up to date as FRAEWs, surveys and remediation are completed.

Who this service is for

• Housing associations, registered social landlords and local authorities.
• Build-to-rent, student accommodation and other residential operators, investors and funds.
• Managing agents, property factors and freeholders responsible for several blocks.
• Boards and asset managers who need one view of external wall risk across their stock.

It suits portfolios of any size, from a handful of blocks to several hundred, anywhere in the UK.

When you need us

• You do not have a reliable, building-by-building picture of the external walls across your stock.
• The information is spread across fire risk assessments, old EWS reports, O&M manuals and drawings, and nobody is sure what is current.
• You need to plan FRAEWs and other surveys across many buildings and want to know where to start.
• In England, you need evidence for regulator returns on buildings of 11 metres or more, and a plan to have a fire risk assessment and, where needed, an up-to-date FRAEW for each of them.
• In Scotland, you want to know which buildings may fall within the Cladding Remediation Programme, and to have your own evidence ready.
• Your board, lender, insurer or a buyer is asking how external wall risk is managed across the portfolio.
• You need a capital plan for remediation and façade maintenance.

Why portfolios are being asked for this

England

• The Regulator of Social Housing's Safety and Quality Standard expects landlords to have an accurate, up-to-date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes.
• The Regulator's quarterly fire safety remediation survey asks larger landlords about every building over 11 metres or with five or more storeys, including whether life-critical external wall defects have been found and how remediation is progressing.
• Under the government's joint plan to accelerate social housing remediation, social landlords are to have a fire risk assessment and, where needed, an up-to-date FRAEW for every residential building of 11 metres or more by December 2027. They report on all of these buildings, including those found safe, through Homes England's National Remediation System.
• The government has announced a Remediation Bill to create a legal duty to remediate unsafe cladding. The proposed deadlines are the end of 2029 for buildings of 18 metres or more and the end of 2031 for buildings of 11 to 18 metres.

Scotland

• The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 came into force on 6 January 2025. It set up the Cladding Assurance Register, kept by Scottish Ministers, and the Single Building Assessment (SBA) for residential buildings of 11 metres or more with external wall cladding.
• The SBA is a government-funded assessment of the whole building, combining fire risk assessment with an appraisal of the external walls.
• Your own cladding register is different. It covers all of your stock, not only buildings in the programme, and gives you the evidence to decide which buildings to put forward and what to do about the rest.

What to send us for a quote

• A list of the buildings, with addresses and, where known, height, number of storeys and approximate age.
• What you hold for each building: fire risk assessments and action trackers, FRAEWs or EWS1 forms, fire and evacuation strategies, O&M manuals, as-built drawings, planning documents, and refurbishment and maintenance records.
• Whether you want the external walls only, or internal fire safety elements as well.
• Any deadline you are working to, such as a board meeting, regulator return or funding application.
• Access arrangements, and anything that limits when we can visit.

Email enquiries@mtconsult.co.uk, use our contact form or call 0800 048 5229. We typically respond within one working day.

What you receive

• A portfolio façade asset register in Excel, with one record per building that you can sort, filter and keep up to date.
• An asset sheet for each building (PDF), summarising its construction, findings and priority.
• A digital photographic record for every building.
• A portfolio summary report, with a risk heat map, the common construction types and recurring defects across your stock, the further investigations we recommend, a remediation strategy and an indicative order for future spending.
• A risk prioritisation matrix that also shows where you may be exposed legally or with a regulator.
• A recommended action schedule, building by building.
• An executive presentation of the findings for your board or leadership team.

What the register records for each building
The building	Address, height, number of storeys, approximate age, occupancy type and primary structural form.
The external walls	Wall construction, cladding materials, insulation type and cavity barriers (each recorded as known or assumed), balconies and roof interfaces.
Fire safety	External combustible materials, known remediation history and how the current fire risk assessment deals with the walls.
Evidence	The supporting documents held, the photographic record, and a confidence level for what we have recorded.
Outcome	Recommended further investigations and an overall façade risk rating and priority.

How it works

We work in two stages. Stage 1 builds the register. Stage 2 carries out what it recommends.

1. Information review and gap analysis. We collect and review what you hold for each building and set out what is missing or out of date. The documents vary from building to building, so the review does too.
2. Building the register. We set up a record for each building from the documents, clearly separating what is known from what is assumed.
3. Site surveys. We visually inspect every building from the outside, where accessible: wall construction, cladding, render, brick slip and rainscreen systems, insulation and cavity barriers where they can be seen, balconies, decking and balustrades, soffits, roof edges, window and curtain wall interfaces, external attachments and externally visible fire stopping. Where it is permitted to fly, we use a drone to see upper levels and roof edges. The surveys are non-intrusive, with no opening-up, which keeps Stage 1 quick and proportionate.
4. Fire risk review. We compare each building with its fire risk assessment to check whether the findings still match what we saw, whether the assessment deals properly with the external walls or needs updating, and whether specialist fire engineering advice, an intrusive investigation or a FRAEW is needed. Where immediate risk mitigation should be considered, we tell you straight away.
5. Risk assessment and prioritisation. Each building is given a red, amber or green rating based on the combustibility of the wall materials, building height, the occupants and anyone needing a personal emergency evacuation plan, the complexity of the façade, the evidence available, our confidence in the construction, and the fire safety management in place. The portfolio is then sorted into low priority, medium priority, high priority and immediate further investigation required.
6. Portfolio reporting. We issue the register, building sheets, summary report, action schedule and executive presentation, and talk you through them.

We aim to be on site within 15 working days of instruction and to issue reports within 20 working days of the last inspection. If your timescale is critical, tell us at the start and we will do all we can to meet it.

Stage 2: acting on the register

The register tells you which buildings need more work and in what order. We can carry that work out: FRAEWs to PAS 9980, intrusive investigations, compartmentation surveys, fire door surveys, recovering missing documents and managing remediation. Where a third-party specialist is needed, we manage them for you.

Why MTC

You get clear, practical advice for each building and each commercial situation, not generic, copy-and-paste commentary. Our directors have been involved in fire and façades for 20 years, and we carry out FRAEWs, opening-up and façade surveys in-house, so the register leads straight into the next step without a hand-over. Our façade defects library explains the problems we most often find, such as missing cavity barriers, combustible insulation and combustible balconies.

What affects the fee

• The number of buildings, and whether the whole portfolio is instructed at once or in phases.
• Where the buildings are and how they are grouped geographically.
• The height and size of the buildings and the complexity of their façades.
• How complete and well organised your existing information is.
• Whether the scope covers the external walls only, or internal fire safety elements too.
• Access, including whether a drone can be flown.
• Any work needed outside normal working hours.

Guidance we work to

• PAS 9980:2026 for the appraisal of external walls.
• The Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022.
• The Regulator of Social Housing's consumer standards, and the government's joint plan to accelerate social housing remediation.
• The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 and the Scottish Government's Single Building Assessment specification.
• The Scottish Advice Note on determining the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings.

Frequently asked questions

What is a cladding register?

A building-by-building record of the external walls across a portfolio: how each building is built, what its cladding and insulation are, how confident that information is, and the fire risk and priority of each building.

Is this the same as Scotland's Cladding Assurance Register?

No. The Cladding Assurance Register is kept by Scottish Ministers and records buildings assessed under the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024. A cladding register from us is your own record of all your buildings, whether or not they are in the government programme.

Does a cladding register replace a FRAEW?

No. A cladding register is a non-intrusive review of the whole portfolio. It tells you which buildings need a FRAEW to PAS 9980, or other investigation, and how urgently. We can then carry out those FRAEWs.

Do you open up the walls?

Not in Stage 1. We record what is known and what is assumed, with a confidence level for each building. Where the answer matters, we recommend an intrusive investigation in Stage 2.

Which buildings should be included?

We usually recommend including every residential building in the portfolio, not only those over 11 or 18 metres, so the register is complete. Lower-risk buildings take less time and can be confirmed as such.

Can you include internal fire safety?

Yes. The register can be extended to internal elements such as compartmentation and fire doors, to form a full asset register.

How do we keep the register up to date?

The register is handed over in Excel, so your team can maintain it. We can also update it as FRAEWs, surveys and remediation are completed.

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