Govt makes haphazard attempt to alleviate some of the blockages in flat sales mess caused by EWS1

annetheman

Crashy_Time said:

Deleted_User said:

I can sympathise that it is a horrible situation for anyone to be in but I dont see why the developers who built the buildings should be held financially responsible.   They built according to government rules at the time. As long as they built them in line with those regulations and didnt cut corners then how are they to blame?  And as private companies how can the government force them to pay for something that isnt their fault?  

I had to pay £10k to remove asbestos from a property i bought.  I wouldnt expect the original builder to pay for that.  I had to rewire unexpectedly but I wouldnt expect the cost of this to be paid by a levy on electricians who wired properties decades ago using rules that were applicable at the time

you seem very well read on the topic so my genuine question is, how is this any different to any building owner being responsible in keeping their building safe and up to date with constantly changing regulations and safety advice?

Good question.

See the post 2 above yours for an excellent link to article by Sue Bright answering just that - it's long, spread over 3 posts, have a cup of tea at the ready...! As the Building Safety Minister Lord Greenhalgh said a few weeks ago: "this is the toughest nut to crack in my 20 years of public service". 

For anyone interested in the type of fire safety issues, here's an example of the breakdown of fire safety issues from the govt's proposed Building Safety Bill, for a prospective flat to be put in line with current regs:



Many of these were required at the time and signed off by NHBC anyway, who do not need to perform intrusive surveys to do so (9 out of 10 buildings fail EWS1 surveys). With statute limitations, insurers not budging and A13 making passing the costs to leaseholders illegal, 'who pays' will be raging on for a long time. 

Also govt said post-Grenfell that they had always said flammable materials should not be used in high rise construction (ar** covering), though there were loopholes in regulations that meant developers could use them if they passed BS8414 tests and of course, because those materials were cheaper, many did.

Regulatory failure, poor standards and leasehold law = catastro-bleep soup we are stuck in.

annetheman

UPDATE: the Housing, Community and Local Govt's select committee publishes pre-legislative scrutiny report on Jenrick's infamous draft Building Safety Bill:

*edit to add*
Easy-read interactive summary: https://houseofcommons.shorthandstories.com/draft-building-safety-bill-scrutiny/

FULL TEXT: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmcomloc/466/466.pdf

"The Government must recommit to the principle that leaseholders should not pay anything towards the cost of remediating historical building safety defects, and, in order to provide leaseholders with the peace of mind they deserve, amend the Bill to explicitly exclude historical costs from the building safety charge.
The draft Bill provides for landlords to recover the cost of building safety measures through a new building safety charge. Contrary to repeated assurances from Ministers, these provisions permit landlords to charge leaseholders for the cost of remediating historical building safety defects for which they were not responsible. We consider this unacceptable and an abdication of responsibility on the part of government."

Together with A13 of the Fire Safety Bill, it's looking more likely every day that building owners are going to be legally disallowed from passing on costs to fix unsafe buildings to leaseholders, the BSB referring to historic costs not prospective, the FSB referring to 'costs' with no time constraints.

Another welcome glimmer of hope this week for many leaseholders however, lenders still won't lend without an EWS1, many continue to pay extortionate amounts for unregulated, ineffective Waking Watch and other interim measures and tonight they could be sleeping in Grenfell 2.0. 

So who will pay? 

The never ending catastro-bleep that is the Building Safety/Cladding Crisis rolls on...

Chandler85

There is fixing the problem and improving the building.

Sprinklers, smoke control, no emergency power source etc are all improvements. They were never required by govt or any regulations and if the cladding is sorted still shouldn't be.  1960s flats have caught fire for years and years and it hasn't spread through the entire blocks without any of these.

The main issue is around compartmentation, and lack of barriers within the cladding.  If these were in place properly (especially the barriers in the cladding) then Grenfell would not have spread in the same way, these blocks are flats were "safe" until the cladding was added as it stopped the compartmentation from working.  This is caused by poor installation, and I believe the building owners or installers who didn't do the job properly should pay to fix.

We seem to have got in a situation where everyone wants an improvement, as oppose to just a fix.  They don't want to pay for an improvement just benefit from it.

So given the Sunday Times article of the £75k they are claiming, I think the 9k fire doors, 8k cavity barriers, 5k compartmentation, 1k fire breaks are all that needs doing to make them safe, so 23k of the 75k, about 1/3rd.  The fire breaks should stop the fire spreading to the next door flats.

There isn't an easy answer to the question of it and who pays, and if there was then there would be no debate around this.

Crashy_Time

annetheman said:

Crashy_Time said:

Deleted_User said:

I can sympathise that it is a horrible situation for anyone to be in but I dont see why the developers who built the buildings should be held financially responsible.   They built according to government rules at the time. As long as they built them in line with those regulations and didnt cut corners then how are they to blame?  And as private companies how can the government force them to pay for something that isnt their fault?  

I had to pay £10k to remove asbestos from a property i bought.  I wouldnt expect the original builder to pay for that.  I had to rewire unexpectedly but I wouldnt expect the cost of this to be paid by a levy on electricians who wired properties decades ago using rules that were applicable at the time

you seem very well read on the topic so my genuine question is, how is this any different to any building owner being responsible in keeping their building safe and up to date with constantly changing regulations and safety advice?

Good question.

See the post 2 above yours for an excellent link to article by Sue Bright answering just that - it's long, spread over 3 posts, have a cup of tea at the ready...! As the Building Safety Minister Lord Greenhalgh said a few weeks ago: "this is the toughest nut to crack in my 20 years of public service". 

For anyone interested in the type of fire safety issues, here's an example of the breakdown of fire safety issues from the govt's proposed Building Safety Bill, for a prospective flat to be put in line with current regs:



Many of these were required at the time and signed off by NHBC anyway, who do not need to perform intrusive surveys to do so (9 out of 10 buildings fail EWS1 surveys). With statute limitations, insurers not budging and A13 making passing the costs to leaseholders illegal, 'who pays' will be raging on for a long time. 

Also govt said post-Grenfell that they had always said flammable materials should not be used in high rise construction (ar** covering), though there were loopholes in regulations that meant developers could use them if they passed BS8414 tests and of course, because those materials were cheaper, many did.

Regulatory failure, poor standards and leasehold law = catastro-bleep soup we are stuck in.

Thanks, looks like a total mess, lucky we have a true statesman and man of the people at the helm?

princeofpounds

Got to say, at some of the sums of money being thrown around on the thread, it's simply not worth making all these fixes/improvements in all buildings.

Quoted earlier in the thread. 3m leaseholders with an issue at £20k per capita fix = £60bn. Even with Grenfell, average UK fire deaths in 2017 were just 400 in the year vs. ~335 p.a. in the 5 previous years.

What's that, a billion pounds per life? I can think of better ways to spend the money that would save a lot more lives.

Obviously those numbers may be rubbish (I suspect a lot of them are) but there is a basic point here. In many of the buildings we'd probably be better off not trying to remove all the risks. Just put in a few of the lower cost precautions and make sure people know to get out when the smoke alarms go off.

annetheman

princeofpounds said:

Obviously those numbers may be rubbish (I suspect a lot of them are) but there is a basic point here. In many of the buildings we'd probably be better off not trying to remove all the risks. Just put in a few of the lower cost precautions and make sure people know to get out when the smoke alarms go off.

Agreed, and that's the basis of interim measures currently recommended by the Fire Chiefs Council. Waking watch is the worst of these and needs to be scrapped immediately, but the others e.g. a get-out approach, individual evacuation plans and centralised fire alarms are all "good enough" where the situation is dire and has no end in sight (a lot of blocks).

This is what is happening in most buildings, whilst they have no idea when/if further remediation is required. 

annetheman

Chandler85 said:

Agree with you, here's the reality of what's happening sadly:

Sprinklers, smoke control, no emergency power source etc are all improvements
Yes, but all these are just some of the recommendations that Fire Chief Council makes when a building fails safety inspection. These "interim measures" cost hundreds of thousands in themselves and have been in place for years for many whilst the who pays argument plays out to make the mandatory remediations.
So you have a situation where in many buildings, people end of being charged for maintenance as well as the "non essentials" - and what's worse is that because these are "emergency" measures, leaseholders often get no consultation around what is put in place.

The main issue is around compartmentation, and lack of barriers within the cladding.  If these were in place properly (especially the barriers in the cladding) then Grenfell would not have spread in the same way, these blocks are flats were "safe" until the cladding was added as it stopped the compartmentation from working.  This is caused by poor installation, and I believe the building owners or installers who didn't do the job properly should pay to fix.
Yes, currently we know that by far this is the most common fault found in all buildings, it pales in comparison to flammable cladding, HPL/ACM or other. And you never really know until you intrusively inspect because the plans showed the cavity barriers present, but builders cut corners. MANY blocks did not meet regs at the time, so they have a point of recourse, right? Nope.
Owners cannot use NHBC or any other insurance/warranty schemes - mainly because they will only pay out once the fault has caused damage i.e. once the building has burnt down, or because too much time has passed.

We seem to have got in a situation where everyone wants an improvement, as oppose to just a fix.  They don't want to pay for an improvement just benefit from it.
I can't tell you a single person who doesn't want anything but the bare minimum; who do you know that has said this? Most I have encountered are people in all situations who just want to do the bare minimum required and move on with their lives. Nobody just fancies installing a sprinkler system because it would "be nice to have".

I think the 9k fire doors, 8k cavity barriers, 5k compartmentation, 1k fire breaks are all that needs doing to make them safe, so 23k of the 75k, about 1/3rd.  The fire breaks should stop the fire spreading to the next door flats.
Agree - and those are ALL regs that have been around since before Grenfell.
Meanwhile, whilst you wait for all that work to get done, you, a single leaseholder, are being forced to pay £400 a month for a minimum-wage person to sit in your hallway with a fire horn 24 hours a day, £2,500 to contribute to a temporary fire alarm, and 900% more per year for your share of the buildings insurance. All after the building owner told you before exchange that the building had met regs (the external walls are now their responsibility and they thought it had, too).

There isn't an easy answer to the question of it and who pays, and if there was then there would be no debate around this.

Agree!

--

Currently, HoC debate on the committee's report has just concluded and Pincher did not do well. Many MPs visibly angry on behalf of their constituents at lack of progress.

Crashy_Time

princeofpounds said:

Got to say, at some of the sums of money being thrown around on the thread, it's simply not worth making all these fixes/improvements in all buildings.

Quoted earlier in the thread. 3m leaseholders with an issue at £20k per capita fix = £60bn. Even with Grenfell, average UK fire deaths in 2017 were just 400 in the year vs. ~335 p.a. in the 5 previous years.

What's that, a billion pounds per life? I can think of better ways to spend the money that would save a lot more lives.

Obviously those numbers may be rubbish (I suspect a lot of them are) but there is a basic point here. In many of the buildings we'd probably be better off not trying to remove all the risks. Just put in a few of the lower cost precautions and make sure people know to get out when the smoke alarms go off.

Yes you could have a point or two there.

annetheman

UPDATE: Building Safety Minister *finally*, at long last, speaks about some of the other options that have been presented to MHCLG as sources of funds for the "likely decades long" remediations required:

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/a247987a-e636-4211-b469-0e3afac3cd29?in=13:44:20

In his closing remarks in the 3rd HoL reading of the Fire Safety Bill before taking it back to the Commons with the amendments, Greenhalgh states "we have options... we could look at levies, as they have been raised by Australia...and we could look at loans" to cover the "many, many billions of pounds" guesstimated.

Loans - for building owners, not leaseholders - are another contributory source. Using loans, building owners could pay to remediate their buildings and get them up to standard much faster.

These could come from e.g. central govt, repayable by the owners, who could recoup from elsewhere if they have legal recourse to do so.

Generally, it is not within the service charge for building owners to charge leaseholders money to pay their own debts, but they could use leasehold law to disguise it as another ambiguous "fee" e.g. admin/management fees. So Amendment 13 is still critically important for leaseholders.

Multiple other options still left out but at least he's talking about some now.

I sincerely hope the farcical nature of what should be a straightforward discussion: it's your building, so pay to fix it has put a spotlight on the absurdity of the feudal leasehold system and England, one of the last countries in the world to still use it, will see long overdue impactful leasehold reform happen on the back of this & the CMA leasehold misselling scandal.

Something good must surely come of all this.

Crashy_Time

They will probably go the "loans" route, the PTB seem to like lending money to the average punters for all sorts of reasons, fixing your flat to make it safe is probably not a bad reason?