Building Cladding £500,000? Who has to pay... Help

AdrianC

blue_max_3 said:

daveyjp said:

blue_max_3 said:

My thoughts are the local authority that approved/oversaw the construction of the towers is the most responsible. It isn't for the government to step in. But ultimately if they are found not to be responsible, we'll all pay anyway through higher council taxes.
A sorry tale for sure.

Building Control was opened to private sector inspectors decades ago.  Local Authorities have to compete with the provate sector providers for the work so Council may not have had any oversight.

As regards materials go back 50 years and the building would have been filled with asbestos because it was good for everything!

Do the private inspectors not have professional indemnity insurance? The incompetence/fraud is still with the professionals. 

What incompetence and/or fraud?
The materials had been tested and shown to comply with Bulding Regs requirements.

numbercruncher8

I think several issues are being conflated here. A lot of the millions of people cited that are affected have nothing to do with cladding, their buildings have no cladding but are awaiting a certificate.

Secondly, emotion is being pushed rather than logic. Of course, some people aren't going to afford it. For a lot of other people, £15,000 represents a pain, but not a life-crippling expense. There will be some extreme examples where the repair costs are expensive and there are fewer flats to apportion the costs between, these will get disproportionately more airtime in the news.

Basically, why should the taxpayer foot the bill for upgrading what are private residences? The main arguments are that 'it's not our fault' or that 'its the governments fault for changing the rules'.

But you can have a case where someone had no problem buying their house in the past now having difficulty to sell because of an absestos roof, which was legal in the past but not legal now. Should the government pay for a new roof? Even leaseholders in the flats with cladding would think the moral answer is no. Repayable loans, perhaps.

Ultimately it could be a good thing, in that people have a better understanding about what they are liable for, and that freeholders are more accountable for the money they spend. I think these factors are lacking at present.

Snooks2

Alter_ego said:

The leaseholders would pay. Why wouldnt they?

Perhaps because they don't own the building or the cladding?

But who benefits not dying from smoke inhalation. Yes it's a lot of money but it's worth it not ending up in ICU  burn unit. 

Mickey666

AdrianC said:

blue_max_3 said:

daveyjp said:

blue_max_3 said:

My thoughts are the local authority that approved/oversaw the construction of the towers is the most responsible. It isn't for the government to step in. But ultimately if they are found not to be responsible, we'll all pay anyway through higher council taxes.
A sorry tale for sure.

Building Control was opened to private sector inspectors decades ago.  Local Authorities have to compete with the provate sector providers for the work so Council may not have had any oversight.

As regards materials go back 50 years and the building would have been filled with asbestos because it was good for everything!

Do the private inspectors not have professional indemnity insurance? The incompetence/fraud is still with the professionals. 

What incompetence and/or fraud?
The materials had been tested and shown to comply with Bulding Regs requirements.

Yes, that's the impression I've gained from various articles, which is why I think the final report will be interesting reading.  People are baying for someone to blame but if the building met all building regulations it can hardly be the fault of the planners, developers, builders, building inspectors can it?  Is there really no scope for anything just being a terrible accident these days?

Of course lessons should be learned and perhaps building regulations will be changed (as they often are) but forcing retrospective changes is fraught with difficulty.  What next, force all thatched properties to have their roofs replaced with tiles?  What about all those houses with wooden weatherboarding? - another fire-risk right there.

The uncomfortable truth is that the loss of life at Grenfell could have been pretty much eliminated by an immediate evacuation and many of those who did survive only did so by ignoring the advice of the fire brigade to stay in their flats.  But point that out, as Rees-Mogg did, and there is uproar. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-50302573

thearchitect

blue_max_3 said:

Do the private inspectors not have professional indemnity insurance? The incompetence/fraud is still with the professionals. 

The primary responsibility legally lies not with building control but those who constructed the building, I'm afraid.   You would therefore have to identify those responsible, establish whether you had a delictual relationship sufficient to merit court action, determine that action was not time-barred, then launch a frankly cripplingly expensive legal action.   The cards are very much stacked against ordinary people.

Moreover, as others have pointed out, it is possible that the cladding did comply with the English building regulations at the time of construction - but matters have now moved on and Westminster has realised, far too late, that perhaps almost every other country in Western Europe was right all along.  The Building Safety Bill (a right corrie-fisted beast) consultation finished on Monday and seeks to tighten things back up again.  Too little, too late in my view.

Mickey666

Chandler85 said:

I don't get it.  Leaseholders pay for the maintenance anyway through service charges and sinking funds, as already mentioned.

They would have to pay for Asbestos (previously mentioned) to be remove when necessary, which at the time was ok to put everywhere.  Much like a normal home owner does for their home.  Cladding was put in place (like Asbestos was used) which at the time was deemed to be safe but now isn't, so the leaseholders are in the same way responsible.

A friend has a flat and the common entrance areas have asbestos-containing artexed ceilings.  Part of the service charge is spent on an annual inspections of the ceiling to verify that they remain in a safe condition.  While such material is now illegal to use in new buildings, there appears to be no legal requirement to actually remove the asbestos-containing material already in existence, providing it remains in a safe (ie fully contained) condition.

thearchitect

The legal obligation in respect of asbestos is to manage it safely:  there is no requirement to remove it if stable, sealed, and therefore presenting no risk to the public.   The problem, of course, is that any maintenance of even the less dangerous forms/materials can lead to such a risk and hence the advantage - if funds permit - of taking precautionary measures.

It is possible to mitigate fire risk through, for example, ensuring proper fire stopping around windows and reviewing advice to occupants.   But whereas asbestos might get you 20 years down the line, flammable cladding can be a very immediate and significant risk.  My sympathies do lie with the poor people that bought such buildings, wrongly assuming that the English regulatory framework was fit for purpose.

firsttimesellerldn

hstanko1971 said:

My 83-year-old dad lives in a flat which he owns, since the Grenfell fire it has been found that the outside of their block doesn't meet fire standards and that it will need redoing at a cost to the residents of £500,000. This works out to be £15,000 per flat. Surely there must be some sort of help available as they are now stuck in a flat that is worthless and cant be sold. Who is responsible to pay? Them or the builders? They live in the UK.

You might find some further useful advice on the 'National Leasehold Campaign' group on Facebook - and definitely no arguments there about who should be paying for these sorts of remediations. Is there a residents campaigning group for your dad's block, or another residents group who can work to try and fight this together? Depending on the age of the block, its height etc there are various potential avenues to explore including an NHBC warranty claim, the government's building safety fund (although deadline to apply has passed I think), etc. I'd also encourage you/your Dad to write to your MP. Some are very good on this issue, in terms of raising it in parliament, some less so, but the more they hear about the hardship and upset this is causing the better. Good luck. 

annetheman

numbercruncher8 said:

I think several issues are being conflated here. A lot of the millions of people cited that are affected have nothing to do with cladding, their buildings have no cladding but are awaiting a certificate.

Secondly, emotion is being pushed rather than logic. Of course, some people aren't going to afford it. For a lot of other people, £15,000 represents a pain, but not a life-crippling expense. There will be some extreme examples where the repair costs are expensive and there are fewer flats to apportion the costs between, these will get disproportionately more airtime in the news.

Basically, why should the taxpayer foot the bill for upgrading what are private residences? The main arguments are that 'it's not our fault' or that 'its the governments fault for changing the rules'.

But you can have a case where someone had no problem buying their house in the past now having difficulty to sell because of an absestos roof, which was legal in the past but not legal now. Should the government pay for a new roof? Even leaseholders in the flats with cladding would think the moral answer is no. Repayable loans, perhaps.

Ultimately it could be a good thing, in that people have a better understanding about what they are liable for, and that freeholders are more accountable for the money they spend. I think these factors are lacking at present.

I think - again - what a lot of people are failing to realise is that leaseholders do not own the fabric of the building.

If I as a leaseholder (I'm not yet) want to pay for the fire safety repairs myself and start remediating the building to comply with today's regulations, I cannot, because I do not own the roof, walls (including cavities), windows or any other part of the fabric of the building.

I 100% believe the building owner should pay for the repairs.

Leaseholders are NOT building owners. A lease gives you the temporary right to occupy the property for the period of said lease, you do not own the property at all. Freeholders own buildings.

So if a person who owns the house with the asbestos roof wants it fixed, they should pay to fix it, because they own the building - that person will always be the freeholder. 

AdrianC

annetheman said:

I think - again - what a lot of people are failing to realise is that leaseholders do not own the fabric of the building.

If I as a leaseholder (I'm not yet) want to pay for the fire safety repairs myself and start remediating the building to comply with today's regulations, I cannot, because I do not own the roof, walls (including cavities), windows or any other part of the fabric of the building.

I 100% believe the building owner should pay for the repairs.

Leaseholders are NOT building owners. A lease gives you the temporary right to occupy the property for the period of said lease, you do not own the property at all. Freeholders own buildings.

Minor issue...

You're forgetting the terms of the lease, which will unequivocally state that the leaseholder is responsible for a proportion of the cost of maintaining and updating the fabric of the building.

There's not a lot of point in arguing it's SOOOO unfair, because I'd lay odds that they've happily been agreeing to it by paying the service charge up until now.