Essendi UK Hotels 2 Limited v London Property Company Limited [2026] EWHC 1354 (TCC)

The principal issue was who, if anyone, had to carry out major building safety works to remove external cladding from the multi-storey tower block housing the Ibis London Wembley hotel. Both parties' fire safety experts agreed that the cladding panels, an aluminium and polyethylene sandwich, presented an intolerable risk of fire and had to be removed. The operator, Essendi, and the landlord, London Property Company, each said the other was responsible.

HHJ Stephen Davies worked through the lease covenants and the parties' fire safety obligations. He held that the landlord was liable to replace the cladding panels under the good condition and legal obligations covenants, and that the same result followed from the fire safety obligations. Essendi's alternative arguments were not needed to reach that outcome.

The case is a worked example of how liability for cladding remediation is allocated between landlord and tenant through the ordinary construction of lease repair and legal-compliance covenants read with statutory fire safety duties, rather than through any special building safety regime.

HHJ Stephen Davies found the landlord "liable under the good condition and legal obligations covenants".