So the government is paying for it. Witch is fair considering they approved the un-safe standards in the first place. It’s not the fault of the architects or the construction company nor the building owner and especially not the tenants or owners of the flats. It was the government that ultimately approved cladding types, they should foot the bill.
This article is about buildings under 18m which were not covered but will now apparently be covered.
As someone who owns a flat in a taller building, built in 2015, which will supposedly be funded by the government, this is what’s happened so far:
Dec 2019: Applied for government funding and hired a fire safety inspection company
March 2020: covid
Dec 2020: fire safety engineer comes to inspect the building
April 2021: fire safety engineer finishes his report – some repair works required
June 2021: government rejects funding because the civil servant who received the email in 2019 didn’t read it properly. Complained to local MP, reapplied for government funding (still no response as of today).
Nov 2021: the MP persuades the original builders to consider if they should pay to do the repairs
Dec 2021: Management agent works out (taking 8 months to do so) that it would only cost £6000 per flat to do the repairs, half of the owners want to pay it and just crack on, the other half can’t afford it. After the below timescales are put forward, roughly half of those who can afford it, say they would be happy to pay £20000 each and get paid back later, but apparently this is not legal.
(projected) Feb 2022: builder will get their own fire safety engineer to inspect the building
Jun 2022: builder may be in a position to decide if they will pay, hopefully government will have responded too
Sep 2022: if funding is sorted then will start tendering the works
mid-2023: earliest possible time for completion of works, and thus the earliest possible time that the 20 or so sales in the development will be able to proceed
If I’d sold the property in 2019, I could have made a slight profit (and the new owner would be screwed over). Instead it was on the market from Oct 2020 to yesterday, I accepted an offer in June 2021 and the buyer tried several banks but they all refused a mortgage until the works would be finished. Yesterday I sold at auction for 36% loss.
> In a new package of measures to be announced next week, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, will tell the Commons that if developers choose not to pay for cladding removals voluntarily the government will threaten them with legal compulsion.
Yeah, right mate. Let’s see you get that through the Commons.
No flat owners should be forced to pay for the mistakes and neglect caused by others, they should also be refunded any money they have had to pay while this has played out in the courts. You have people who are close to bankruptcy over this, as well as people having breakdowns over the stress it is causing them, it is only fair they get that money back so they can begin to recover from a harrowing experience.
Doesn’t it seem like Gove could be the next UK leader? He seems to be stepping up
6 comments
So the government is paying for it. Witch is fair considering they approved the un-safe standards in the first place. It’s not the fault of the architects or the construction company nor the building owner and especially not the tenants or owners of the flats. It was the government that ultimately approved cladding types, they should foot the bill.
This article is about buildings under 18m which were not covered but will now apparently be covered.
As someone who owns a flat in a taller building, built in 2015, which will supposedly be funded by the government, this is what’s happened so far:
Dec 2019: Applied for government funding and hired a fire safety inspection company
March 2020: covid
Dec 2020: fire safety engineer comes to inspect the building
April 2021: fire safety engineer finishes his report – some repair works required
June 2021: government rejects funding because the civil servant who received the email in 2019 didn’t read it properly. Complained to local MP, reapplied for government funding (still no response as of today).
Nov 2021: the MP persuades the original builders to consider if they should pay to do the repairs
Dec 2021: Management agent works out (taking 8 months to do so) that it would only cost £6000 per flat to do the repairs, half of the owners want to pay it and just crack on, the other half can’t afford it. After the below timescales are put forward, roughly half of those who can afford it, say they would be happy to pay £20000 each and get paid back later, but apparently this is not legal.
(projected) Feb 2022: builder will get their own fire safety engineer to inspect the building
Jun 2022: builder may be in a position to decide if they will pay, hopefully government will have responded too
Sep 2022: if funding is sorted then will start tendering the works
mid-2023: earliest possible time for completion of works, and thus the earliest possible time that the 20 or so sales in the development will be able to proceed
If I’d sold the property in 2019, I could have made a slight profit (and the new owner would be screwed over). Instead it was on the market from Oct 2020 to yesterday, I accepted an offer in June 2021 and the buyer tried several banks but they all refused a mortgage until the works would be finished. Yesterday I sold at auction for 36% loss.
> In a new package of measures to be announced next week, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, will tell the Commons that if developers choose not to pay for cladding removals voluntarily the government will threaten them with legal compulsion.
Yeah, right mate. Let’s see you get that through the Commons.
No flat owners should be forced to pay for the mistakes and neglect caused by others, they should also be refunded any money they have had to pay while this has played out in the courts. You have people who are close to bankruptcy over this, as well as people having breakdowns over the stress it is causing them, it is only fair they get that money back so they can begin to recover from a harrowing experience.
Doesn’t it seem like Gove could be the next UK leader? He seems to be stepping up
Letter from HMT to Michael Gove: https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1479547522712580108?s=20&fbclid=IwAR3_8JbdbDAxGLt0EFBrO2HXU5NJk4kpPymt0ty1FVAG1b3s9oPGm72A2nE