Should I buy a flat which has cladding?

parcival

I have just sold a flat in a 7 story block - luckily no cladding. My solicitor did say that conveyancing of tower blocks with cladding is proving very slow and troublesome and likely to get worse.
If I were you, I would leave it!

carefullycautious

This is just one of a number of horror stories relating to works that need to be paid by owner occupiers

'A terrible shock': council hands flat owner £146,000 bill | Leasehold | The Guardian
If this does not scare you off nothing will.

AdrianC

carefullycautious said:

This is just one of a number of horror stories relating to works that need to be paid by owner occupiers

'A terrible shock': council hands flat owner £146,000 bill | Leasehold | The Guardian
If this does not scare you off nothing will.

Now read the smallprint. He's sooo hard done-by, having bought it under RtB in 2004 for £93k less discount. Now worth £250k. And he's been renting it out for nine years.

Oh, and the council are offering to buy it back for full market value.

carefullycautious

AdrianC said:

carefullycautious said:

This is just one of a number of horror stories relating to works that need to be paid by owner occupiers

'A terrible shock': council hands flat owner £146,000 bill | Leasehold | The Guardian
If this does not scare you off nothing will.

Now read the smallprint. He's sooo hard done-by, having bought it under RtB in 2004 for £93k less discount. Now worth £250k. And he's been renting it out for nine years.

Oh, and the council are offering to buy it back for full market value.

Apologies did not read the full script. However, there are many stories online of the high charges that can and will be incurred if you buy a flat in a block. If people do not do thorough research and know what they are getting themselves into these are the outcomes. I personally have never understood how people can buy flats and think there will never be any outlay for repairs.

AdrianC

carefullycautious said:

AdrianC said:

carefullycautious said:

This is just one of a number of horror stories relating to works that need to be paid by owner occupiers

'A terrible shock': council hands flat owner £146,000 bill | Leasehold | The Guardian
If this does not scare you off nothing will.

Now read the smallprint. He's sooo hard done-by, having bought it under RtB in 2004 for £93k less discount. Now worth £250k. And he's been renting it out for nine years.

Oh, and the council are offering to buy it back for full market value.

Apologies did not read the full script. However, there are many stories online of the high charges that can and will be incurred if you buy a flat in a block. If people do not do thorough research and know what they are getting themselves into these are the outcomes. I personally have never understood how people can buy flats and think there will never be any outlay for repairs.

The issue here, though, isn't so much the possibility of a bill - it's the size of this one.

Is it really that unexpected, though? It's a 60s council tower block, part of an estate of 434 flats, half in 20-storey blocks. That, generally, is alarm-bell central for any flat-buyer. The full market value buy-back would be leapt at by most people, I'd suggest. Even without the cladding/EWS1 issues.

"There are 22 leaseholders who own property on the estate, which is home to a total of around 225 flats spread over three tower blocks. According to Southwark council records, 20 leaseholders have received estimated bills of up to £151,000. The other two received bills of £12,000 or £15,000 as they are in the first five years of their lease. Only two of the estate’s 22 leaseholders are recorded as living on the estate, with the remainder letting out their properties."

Lunchbox

Ash_29 said:

@annetheman
Thank you!
I haven't been sent the report yet, I was only sent the paper which had B1 ticked. I will request the report right away.

The building is over 18m (12 floors) and it has some sort of metal cladding, they haven't yet sent me exactly what it's made of. Also it has timber flooring on balconies too. I was informed that one of the balconies actually caught fire last year due to lit cigarette being left unattended on the balcony...

There are two different types of cavity barriers fitted behind the cladding. The vertical cavity fire barriers are manufactured by Rockwool. The horizontal cavity fire barriers are products manufactured by Envirograf. I believe the one's by Rockwool are the Rainscreen duo slabs ones which are listed on their website.

Have you thought about getting an indemnity insurance policy? 

Look very carefully at the materials. Our flat was rated B1, due to timber flooring on the balconies and insulation under the cladding, which is Kingspan Kooltherm K15. The EWS1 was issued earlier this year, and we’re very worried it will now change given what has come out about this insulation in the Grenfell inquiry.

annetheman

Lunchbox said:

Ash_29 said:

@annetheman
Thank you!
I haven't been sent the report yet, I was only sent the paper which had B1 ticked. I will request the report right away.

The building is over 18m (12 floors) and it has some sort of metal cladding, they haven't yet sent me exactly what it's made of. Also it has timber flooring on balconies too. I was informed that one of the balconies actually caught fire last year due to lit cigarette being left unattended on the balcony...

There are two different types of cavity barriers fitted behind the cladding. The vertical cavity fire barriers are manufactured by Rockwool. The horizontal cavity fire barriers are products manufactured by Envirograf. I believe the one's by Rockwool are the Rainscreen duo slabs ones which are listed on their website.

Have you thought about getting an indemnity insurance policy? 

Look very carefully at the materials. Our flat was rated B1, due to timber flooring on the balconies and insulation under the cladding, which is Kingspan Kooltherm K15. The EWS1 was issued earlier this year, and we’re very worried it will now change given what has come out about this insulation in the Grenfell inquiry.

Yes, absolutely. OP it is 99% likely that Kingspan insulation was used on the external wall system; when you have the report, have a look at the type of overlay/cladding it was used with and read the test results: https://www.kingspan.com/gb/en-gb/fire-safety/kingspan-bs-8414-tested-systems

Materials are defined as supporting combustion or not in specific test conditions. Currently there is no actual "pass" or "fail" for most external wall systems, only levels of risk assigned in a fire engineer's view ie BS8414 and EWS1... But if for example MHCLG decides to hamfist in again (every time they have it has been a complete clusterfrick) and impose a nationwide ban on the use of K15 in residential buildings, regardless of the system it is in - and we have seen this govt pull similar kneejerk reactions that caused chaos before post-Grenfell - we are all screwed. It's in most houses, too!

I don't see this happening but if it does, it's very likely they will make it a 18m+ problem, because of aforementioned lack of a risk-based view of cladding systems from govt so far. Just my opinion, though!

Best of luck, hope the report is okay!

GDB2222

I’m sure that we have Kingspan or similar in our roof. But we’re in a 3 storey house, and the Kingspan is at the top. So, if it burns, the flames and fumes will be going upwards. If it were wrapped around the house, I’d replace it with something non flammable.

Wasn’t there a student accommodation block where the cladding burned like crazy, even though it was under 18m?

Lunchbox

annetheman said:

Lunchbox said:

Ash_29 said:

@annetheman
Thank you!
I haven't been sent the report yet, I was only sent the paper which had B1 ticked. I will request the report right away.

The building is over 18m (12 floors) and it has some sort of metal cladding, they haven't yet sent me exactly what it's made of. Also it has timber flooring on balconies too. I was informed that one of the balconies actually caught fire last year due to lit cigarette being left unattended on the balcony...

There are two different types of cavity barriers fitted behind the cladding. The vertical cavity fire barriers are manufactured by Rockwool. The horizontal cavity fire barriers are products manufactured by Envirograf. I believe the one's by Rockwool are the Rainscreen duo slabs ones which are listed on their website.

Have you thought about getting an indemnity insurance policy? 

Look very carefully at the materials. Our flat was rated B1, due to timber flooring on the balconies and insulation under the cladding, which is Kingspan Kooltherm K15. The EWS1 was issued earlier this year, and we’re very worried it will now change given what has come out about this insulation in the Grenfell inquiry.

Yes, absolutely. OP it is 99% likely that Kingspan insulation was used on the external wall system; when you have the report, have a look at the type of overlay/cladding it was used with and read the test results: https://www.kingspan.com/gb/en-gb/fire-safety/kingspan-bs-8414-tested-systems

Materials are defined as supporting combustion or not in specific test conditions. Currently there is no actual "pass" or "fail" for most external wall systems, only levels of risk assigned in a fire engineer's view ie BS8414 and EWS1... But if for example MHCLG decides to hamfist in again (every time they have it has been a complete clusterfrick) and impose a nationwide ban on the use of K15 in residential buildings, regardless of the system it is in - and we have seen this govt pull similar kneejerk reactions that caused chaos before post-Grenfell - we are all screwed. It's in most houses, too!

I don't see this happening but if it does, it's very likely they will make it a 18m+ problem, because of aforementioned lack of a risk-based view of cladding systems from govt so far. Just my opinion, though!

Best of luck, hope the report is okay!

The problem is that the EWS1 reports (before October 2020, and where a physical test wasn’t carried out) will have been based on the 2005 BS8414 tests of K15. Kingspan have admitted they changed the product after this test (which was shown in 2007 to be far more flammable), but continued to use the 2005 test results. https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/common-knowledge-grenfell-insulation-used-old-test-report-says-sacked-kingspan-manager/5109184.article

annetheman

Lunchbox said:

annetheman said:

Lunchbox said:

Ash_29 said:

@annetheman
Thank you!
I haven't been sent the report yet, I was only sent the paper which had B1 ticked. I will request the report right away.

The building is over 18m (12 floors) and it has some sort of metal cladding, they haven't yet sent me exactly what it's made of. Also it has timber flooring on balconies too. I was informed that one of the balconies actually caught fire last year due to lit cigarette being left unattended on the balcony...

There are two different types of cavity barriers fitted behind the cladding. The vertical cavity fire barriers are manufactured by Rockwool. The horizontal cavity fire barriers are products manufactured by Envirograf. I believe the one's by Rockwool are the Rainscreen duo slabs ones which are listed on their website.

Have you thought about getting an indemnity insurance policy? 

Look very carefully at the materials. Our flat was rated B1, due to timber flooring on the balconies and insulation under the cladding, which is Kingspan Kooltherm K15. The EWS1 was issued earlier this year, and we’re very worried it will now change given what has come out about this insulation in the Grenfell inquiry.

Yes, absolutely. OP it is 99% likely that Kingspan insulation was used on the external wall system; when you have the report, have a look at the type of overlay/cladding it was used with and read the test results: https://www.kingspan.com/gb/en-gb/fire-safety/kingspan-bs-8414-tested-systems

Materials are defined as supporting combustion or not in specific test conditions. Currently there is no actual "pass" or "fail" for most external wall systems, only levels of risk assigned in a fire engineer's view ie BS8414 and EWS1... But if for example MHCLG decides to hamfist in again (every time they have it has been a complete clusterfrick) and impose a nationwide ban on the use of K15 in residential buildings, regardless of the system it is in - and we have seen this govt pull similar kneejerk reactions that caused chaos before post-Grenfell - we are all screwed. It's in most houses, too!

I don't see this happening but if it does, it's very likely they will make it a 18m+ problem, because of aforementioned lack of a risk-based view of cladding systems from govt so far. Just my opinion, though!

Best of luck, hope the report is okay!

The problem is that the EWS1 reports (before October 2020, and where a physical test wasn’t carried out) will have been based on the 2005 BS8414 tests of K15. Kingspan have admitted they changed the product after this test (which was shown in 2007 to be far more flammable), but continued to use the 2005 test results. https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/common-knowledge-grenfell-insulation-used-old-test-report-says-sacked-kingspan-manager/5109184.article

Yes, absolutely disgusting - worse still MHCLG knew it should not have been on high rises and it was, years before. 

That's my point there - if the govt say regardless of the BS8414 tests, K15 is banned from use - which is possible since we know now that it is a completely different product from that which the tests were based on - we're all screwed. Retrospective application of building regs they knew were not being followed is why so many buildings are in the cladding scandal currently.

I think though, that this won't happen. What's more likely is that the K15 on use in buildings 18m+ will require works to remove it, though that would mean a reinterpretation of its own advice note (which govt have done so very possible)! That's my prediction!

How govt handles response to these revelations will be crucial but track record so far not good...!