I and a huge amount of other people are living in a flat which currently has a value of £0 and am currently waiting to find out how much remediation works are going to cost to make the building I live in safe. As it is deemed unsafe by retrospective government fire and safety requirements, it is impossible to get a new mortgage for and therefore impossible to sell. The remediation costs are likely to be in the 10's of thousands of pounds.
The building may have been built to meet the requirements at the time (12 years ago) and then again it may not have. The guidelines have also obviously changed since Grenfell. But as it stands right now, all costs are to be passed onto the leaseholder i.e. the person who owns and lives in the flat i.e me. I moved in one year ago, had all the survey's done, used a solicitor and followed all procedure. Other people are in even worse positions, if they can't afford a bill of £50,000 their only option maybe bankruptcy, if they are in various legal professions or an accountant this means automatically losing their license to practice. Other people who have used the governments partial ownership scheme, where you buy 25% of a property and then rent (paying 25% less rent per month) are being asked to pay 100% of the remediation costs. For a lot of people the costs are more than the 25% stake in the property they own.
Some property developers followed the guidelines at the time so say it isn't their fault. The government says it followed the standards at the time so it isn't their fault. The building inspectors which failed to properly inspect properties (when there were actual issues outside of what has been changed retrospectively) seem to have immunity against legal action. The cladding companies who made unsafe cladding are trying to weasel their way out of responsibility by saying it is safe in the right circumstances. It feels like there are a few slices of blame to dish out. But one party who has had NO involvement in any of this is the people living in the flats.
The most sensible option I have heard suggested so far is that the government pays to clean up this entire scandal, and then puts a levy on property developers making flats so they get a percentage back on each new development to slowly recoup the money. But instead of that, the government is making various noises about wanting to protect leaseholders whilst simultaneously not doing anything concrete, even though as I write this people are already filing bankruptcy, giving up their flat which has all the money they have ever saved in, and on top of that, the remediation work in subject to VAT so the government brings in tax for all work done to fix up this mess. You can track huge sums (millions of pounds) being donated/pumped into the conservative party by property developers, and of course members of the conservative party also have shares or other stakes in property development companies.
The building may have been built to meet the requirements at the time (12 years ago) and then again it may not have. The guidelines have also obviously changed since Grenfell. But as it stands right now, all costs are to be passed onto the leaseholder i.e. the person who owns and lives in the flat i.e me. I moved in one year ago, had all the survey's done, used a solicitor and followed all procedure. Other people are in even worse positions, if they can't afford a bill of £50,000 their only option maybe bankruptcy, if they are in various legal professions or an accountant this means automatically losing their license to practice. Other people who have used the governments partial ownership scheme, where you buy 25% of a property and then rent (paying 25% less rent per month) are being asked to pay 100% of the remediation costs. For a lot of people the costs are more than the 25% stake in the property they own.
Some property developers followed the guidelines at the time so say it isn't their fault. The government says it followed the standards at the time so it isn't their fault. The building inspectors which failed to properly inspect properties (when there were actual issues outside of what has been changed retrospectively) seem to have immunity against legal action. The cladding companies who made unsafe cladding are trying to weasel their way out of responsibility by saying it is safe in the right circumstances. It feels like there are a few slices of blame to dish out. But one party who has had NO involvement in any of this is the people living in the flats.
The most sensible option I have heard suggested so far is that the government pays to clean up this entire scandal, and then puts a levy on property developers making flats so they get a percentage back on each new development to slowly recoup the money. But instead of that, the government is making various noises about wanting to protect leaseholders whilst simultaneously not doing anything concrete, even though as I write this people are already filing bankruptcy, giving up their flat which has all the money they have ever saved in, and on top of that, the remediation work in subject to VAT so the government brings in tax for all work done to fix up this mess. You can track huge sums (millions of pounds) being donated/pumped into the conservative party by property developers, and of course members of the conservative party also have shares or other stakes in property development companies.
It is a scandal of the highest order.