"Official" Thread for all of us waiting for a cladding report...

stevekho

So it is safe to say that the cladding study will be delayed because of the lockdown? aaargh

September100

Hi all,
I'm a first time buyer in East London and I am also having trouble obtaining the Advice Note 14 - my mortgage lender will not lend without seeing this. This sale has been dragging on for months for various other reasons before the Advice Note 14 was raised, and now with coronavirus I can't see the sale ever going through, it's extremely frustrating. If it is such a big deal why have these huge management companies and the government not doing anything about it?

Before lock down I had to ring the property management company (KFH) myself to ask if they had received the emails from solicitors requesting the document, a rather rude lady said the reason they hadn't replied to any of the emails because they simply don't have the Advice Note 14...she could have told us that at the beginning of the process!

I have seen that 3 other flats have sold in the last year in the same building, I was thinking about contacting the estate agents who sold those properties to ask how the buyers got around the Advice Note 14 problem and got a mortgage, but I can't seem to find out who the estate agents were. From reading this thread I've seen that a couple of you have suggested switching mortgage providers, I'm not so sure about doing this at the moment as due to coronavirus, some providers have stopped accepting new applications (although luckily I do have over 40% deposit..).

I've also read some horror stories that it could take up to 2 years for these inspections to be carried out...
I'm in the very fortunate position that I'm not in a chain and the seller is not in a chain either - should I sit it out and see what happens or withdraw? I'm worried it could take a year to get this document!
Thank you!

sh1ru

Hi all, I received a letter from L&Q stating that our building is considered low risk so they wont get to completing our EWS1 certificate as they are focusing on more higher prioity bulidings. Has anyone else received a similar letter? If we are considered low risk - surely they have the information to fill our the form??

annetheman

Bump for answers to the above

ryan_uk2020

Hi all, 
I'm a first time buyer in London and also suffering with this cladding report issue.
The process has started since Oct 2019 and did not get through the mortgage application from Barclays.
My property agent suggested us to try another lender and she claimed the building warranty (NHBC warranty) should be able to cover if there is any issue from the cladding. For example, if I go ahead to buy it and later on cladding report results in negative. This warranty should cover the cost incurred.

Is that true? I am worried to become liable to the cladding issue if I go ahead. Thanks in advance!

jhym

NorthWestVillager said:

Come into the same issue for our flat in Emerald Gardens, Wembley Park.

The building managers FirstPort have been reluctant to help. It took months of pressing to understand this issue (long after we've lost money on solicitors fees to the local council to try and buy them out of the shared equity scheme we're in).

The last response was:

There is not really any further news coming from Quintain at this point on the EWS1 form for Emerald Gardens. The update at the meeting last Friday was that the fire engineers who are trying to complete this are still working through all of the product specifications and as built information, but at this point are not able to complete the EWS1 form. They are not able to give me any definitive timescales at present, but it seems as though it will be another few weeks before we will know whether they are required to carry out simulated burns at a testing facility.

As previously mentioned, if this is the case then it will likely be the summer before they get the required reports to give a pass on the façade.


Has anyone in the region been able to buy/re-mortgage recently?

Yes! I’m looking to sell in Forum House, Wembley Park! 

Have you had any updates? I’ve emailed FirstPort numerous times but no helpful response. There last response was this-

Currently Forum House does not have an EWS1 form/Statement of compliance.   Unfortunately due to the age of the development it is not possible to simply obtain either of these.

The building regs back in 2009 when Forum House was built were significantly different to the requirements of the AN14.  Expecting older developments to simply be able to meet these requirements is not a straight forward process at all.
The An14/EWS1 does not simply look at the external covering of the buildings. The entire construction of the external wall has to be reviewed right back to the base build concrete works.   In order to do this, there needs to be an extensive intrusive survey carried out by a certified surveyor.
This is a large piece of work which requires extensive planning etc.. and we are working with Quintain in order to get to a position where we will be able to have this carried out.    It is important to note that there is no guarantee that they will even be able to satisfy the requirements, and they may report that remedial works would be required.   There will be costs associated with carrying out the survey, and there would be costs associated with any remedial works that were required.

Unfortunately due to the reasons that I have stated above, it doesn't appear that the sign off documents from the LFB and Building control in relation to the cladding replacement on Forum House that took place back in 2018 will satisfy lenders.   They do not satisfy the requirements for producing the EWS1 form either.

Realistically because of the age of the development, and the works that will be involved in order to obtain the statement of compliance, I cannot envisage us being able to obtain this inside of 6 to 8 months at least.   Once this is done, there would be a sign off document for the development, and this would be shared with all leaseholders.

My apologies that I don't have more positive news for you at this point.   We will be updating leaseholders as and when we have more info about timescales for the surveys etc..


I am intrigued as to the cost and who will be expected to pay for this as well as the 6-9 month timeline which with lockdown will now be longer. Any updates from your end? 

Desperate to sell! 

jont107

Does anyone know what the implications are for Help to Buy as far as the lack of an EWS1 goes?
There’s a caveat about selling for ‘below market value’ or something similar, but if you don’t have an EWS1 then the value is limited by that fact as your market is cash buyers only. This has financial implications for anyone selling or trying to staircase if the valuation is done on what is should be worth, not what it can actually raise.

shellf23

Can anyone confirm whether the lenders can overturn decisions made by surveyors at all? We previously tried to sell and obtained a MHCLG statement that was originally requested by the lender, proving the building was fire safe, and this allowed the buyer to obtain their mortgage. They have since pulled out due to covid and we have started the process all over again to be hit with a new hurdle of obtaining an EWS1 form. Surely if this MHCLG statement was good enough 6 months ago it should still be good now considering it explains the same thing as the EWS1 form? We have pushed back to our management company to get this, who have said Taylor Wimpey wont want to get involved so we have also contacted Taylor Wimpey directly too. The surveyor was from countrywide and we even gave him a copy of the MHCLG statement, yet he still valued the property at zero (the building is of solid concrete construction with no cavity!). I don't understand how the government and surveyors can think its okay to freeze people into a situation where they cannot move home. Most of us will be at the hands of the management company who just sees this as added expense they do not want to fork out for so we are stuck as we are also not permitted to allow someone to drill into the walls of the building because we are only leaseholders. 

D.L

shellf23 said:

Can anyone confirm whether the lenders can overturn decisions made by surveyors at all? We previously tried to sell and obtained a MHCLG statement that was originally requested by the lender, proving the building was fire safe, and this allowed the buyer to obtain their mortgage. They have since pulled out due to covid and we have started the process all over again to be hit with a new hurdle of obtaining an EWS1 form. Surely if this MHCLG statement was good enough 6 months ago it should still be good now considering it explains the same thing as the EWS1 form? We have pushed back to our management company to get this, who have said Taylor Wimpey wont want to get involved so we have also contacted Taylor Wimpey directly too. The surveyor was from countrywide and we even gave him a copy of the MHCLG statement, yet he still valued the property at zero (the building is of solid concrete construction with no cavity!). I don't understand how the government and surveyors can think its okay to freeze people into a situation where they cannot move home. Most of us will be at the hands of the management company who just sees this as added expense they do not want to fork out for so we are stuck as we are also not permitted to allow someone to drill into the walls of the building because we are only leaseholders. 

You'd think a survey showing it was safe would be good enough but ultimately you can't force anyone to lend money.

davidmcn

shellf23 said:

Can anyone confirm whether the lenders can overturn decisions made by surveyors at all? 

It's up to the lenders what they do with the advice from their surveyors, the surveyors do not "make decisions".