The Government is being urged to provide loans to residents facing controversial bills to replace cladding on residential tower blocks.
Residents of a privately-owned tower block, Citiscape in Croydon with 95 flats, have been told they may face the bill for replacing materials found on the building that are similar to those at Grenfell Tower.
The freeholder of the Croydon property, Proxima GR Properties, has said it is not legally obliged to cover the cost of the work and the issue is now going to a tribunal.
Nigel Glen, chief executive of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA), insists the leaseholders are likely to be liable as there is nothing the landlords have done wrong.
He said: “The situation facing leaseholders in Croydon is not unique and is faced by a number of leaseholders in high rise tower blocks up and down the country.
“Since the Grenfell Tower fire, ARMA has identified 12 high-rise blocks managed by its members where the aluminium composite material cladding has failed the new Government tests.
“Immediately after the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, ARMA established a Fire Safety in High Rise Buildings Group to discuss issues arising from the tragedy and to share best practice. The safety of residents is always the uppermost concern. ARMA also flagged immediately to Government the problem under leases as to who would likely pay for the cost of fire safety remedial works.
“In the absence of alternative funding, it is likely that leaseholders will be legally liable to pay for the cost of fire safety work and also for the walking watches that the fire brigades have demanded.
“This could easily lead to bills of tens of thousands of pounds per leaseholder. ARMA has lobbied Government to understand the time sensitive costs and the burden it could place on leaseholders.
“To avoid safety being compromised whilst lengthy legal battles are fought, ARMA’s proposal is that Government provide an interest-free loan to leaseholders to cover the cost of this work.
“The Government has suggested that landlords should pay for the works but there is no suggestion that anyone has acted inappropriately or cut corners, rather that Building Control approved and signed off the various types of cladding at the time and have only now tested those very systems and found them unsuitable.”
The Croydon building failed fire safety checks last year. The property manager, First Port Property Services, has advised residents that the £2m costs would be raised through service charges.
The claim should be against those who originally passed these materials as satisfactory for use. This should be the Government/their agents who produced the Building Regulations and permitted the use of such materials.
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The only issue I can see with that, is that these materials were not (as far as I know) flagged as dangerous or unsuitable before the tragedy at Grenfell.
Asbestos was once widely used as a building material, before it became known it was harmful and unsafe.
Lead paint was once used before the effects were known.
Probably there are building materials being used this very second that will be discovered to be harmful or dangerous in 10 years time.
If it can be proved that they knowingly ignored warnings that the materials were a fire risk, then yes, make them liable, but to make them responsible for not knowing information that no-one knew would be criminally unfair.
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My understanding was they knew they had a limited spread of fire and some fire experts knew and warned about the risk. I also understand they were not recommended for buildings over a certain number of floor (6 or 8 I think). Materials are regularly tested for fire characteristics, it is inconceivable the risk were not known. The other council block in SE London was a fore-warning as well. Take a small piece of celotex and put a lighter to it – it burns fairly freely! The risk of asbestos was known in the 1960 but its use continued through to the 1980’s. Lowering of standards based on cost is wrong. Why do Governments expect landlords and agents to carry out fire risk assessments? and H&S risk assessments when people are not sufficiently competent to do them? it so they can shift the blame. Your thinking is sound though and I understand your take on this. Kind thoughts CountryLass
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At a cost of £23,000 (assuming a 10% contingency) each I do wonder if there isn’t a cheaper option available.
I still want to know how the panels passed in the first place.
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