Cladding crisis: ‘No end in sight’ for flat owners still trapped in unsellable homes despite major repair scheme

Published

2 years ago

July 28, 2023

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Flat owners caught up in the cladding crisis say they will remain trapped in unsellable homes despite a major new scheme to help fund repairs.

The long-awaited Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) opened this week and will provide £5bn to fix medium-rise tower blocks with flammable external walls in cases where the developer cannot be traced.

It has been billed by the government as the “biggest intervention on building safety to date” and aims to protect leaseholders from the expensive costs of remediating their properties that have emerged since the Grenfell Tower disaster.

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But Lisa Petty, who is facing a £21,000 bill, told Sky News the announcement will “have absolutely no bearing on my situation”.

The 42-year-old lives in a building in Romford, Essex, with the same type of ACM cladding blamed on the rapid spread of the deadly fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017, which killed 72 people.

Because the building is less than 11 metres in height, it does not qualify for government funding.

Lisa said: “It’s so frustrating to hear the government say all leaseholders are blameless when they have left out a whole group of us living in buildings below 11 metres.

“The government is contradicting itself because they say if you’re under 11 metres that’s a lower risk to life so you don’t need remediation, but at the same time they have acknowledged there’s a risk because they have banned ACM cladding on (new) buildings irrespective of height.”

While ministers have repeatedly insisted buildings below this threshold are safe and remediation work is not necessary, government guidance contains no restriction on repairs being required.

Officials from the Department of Levelling Up, Communities and Housing (DLUCH) have intervened over Lisa’s case, but fire engineers are standing firm in their position the works are needed in order for the building to meet safety standards.

The long-running saga resulted in the sale of Lisa’s flat collapsing and her mortgage payments rising by £450 a month – as she switched to a variable rate when she thought she would be moving.

Lisa said the problems have limited “every aspect of my life” and it feels like there’s “no end in sight”.

“I can’t begin to quantify the impact it’s had, it’s exhausting,” she said.

“I want children and I’ve thought about adoption in the past, but that’s not something I feel like I can pursue because my future and my financial stability is so dependent on this situation.

“It just feels like your life isn’t your own and you are just worried to spend any money.

“I shouldn’t be made to pay to make this building safe that I had absolutely no say in designing or signing off.”

‘Buildings will only be made half safe’

Since the Grenfell Tower fire killed 72 people in 2017, the cladding scandal has trapped thousands of flat owners in unsafe and unsellable homes – with many facing huge repair bills to fix them.

The opening of the CSS means that costs of fixing dangerous cladding for all buildings in England over 11 metres will now be covered either by government funding or by companies who built them.

The DLUCH said the scheme will give “tens of thousands of residents across England a pathway to a safe home”.

But the End our Cladding Scandal (EOCS) campaign group said while welcome “there are still many hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the building safety scandal, including those in buildings under 11 metres in height”.

They added the scheme will only make buildings “half safe” because it does not cover historic non-cladding fire safety issues, like internal defects and missing cavity barriers.

The government has introduced a £10-£15k legal cap on what can be charged to fix these widespread problems, but this excludes certain leaseholders, including landlords of more than three flats.

‘We are being punished’

Patsy Sweeney, who owns three small rentals in Birmingham with her husband, feels like she is being “punished” for investing into property to self-fund her retirement.

The former insurance broker said she was “accidentally” pushed into the “non-qualifying” threshold because she had wanted to sell the flat she was living in and move to a house during the pandemic – but the cladding issues made that impossible.

“I was going round the bend, getting really desperate to get out of the flat and feeling trapped, so we took a view to rent it out and get a mortgage for the house and (months later) that was what put us over the threshold.”

The 56-year-old now faces “uncapped financially liability” for the non-cladding issues, which she fears will cost tens of thousands of pounds.

“I can’t see any logic to it. You could have two flats that are worth £2m in some parts of London and be qualified, or you could have three in the north of England for £300,000 and be unqualified, so it seems really punitive.

“Whether I have one flat or 10 I didn’t make these buildings, so it’s irrelevant.”

Labour has urged the government to “rethink” the cap exclusion, arguing it will expose non-qualifying leaseholders to financially ruinous bills and delay remediation in the cases where they simply can’t pay.

Shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook told Sky News: “The millions of people whose lives are on hold as a result of the building safety crisis need the government to grip and drive the national remediation effort that is required to make all buildings safe and to reconsider their damaging decision to abandon a minority of leaseholders to extortionate non-cladding remediation costs.”

‘Human cash machines’

The government has not set a timeline for when homes should be remediated under the CSS, but said thousands of buildings will benefit “over the next decade”.

For Patsy, this casts a dark shadow over her plans for a comfortable retirement.

Her future costs are unknown, but she calculates the cladding crisis has already cost her £1m in rising building insurance, service charges, mortgage rates, extra stamp duty and landlord licensing fees.

She fears she will never see the equity from the flats as the “non-qualifying” status stays with the property’s lease after it’s sold so even if the issues are fixed, “no one will ever want to buy them”.

Patsy said: “I’m not a wealthy individual. Some people might think I am because I’ve got these properties but all we did was use our savings to look after our future for when we retired and now that money is being spent on a problem caused by developers.

“We are being treated like human cash machines that took a commercial risk and are now being told to live with the consequences. How is that right?”

Politics

Bitcoin still on track for $1.8M in 2035, says analyst

Published

6 hours ago

April 12, 2025

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Bitcoin still on track for .8M in 2035, says analyst

Bitcoin remains on track to surpass $1.8 million by 2035 despite recent price corrections and waning investor appetite caused by ongoing global trade tensions, according to Joe Burnett, director of market research at Unchained.

Speaking during Cointelegraph’s Chainreaction live show on X, Burnett said that Bitcoin is still in a long-term bullish cycle and could potentially rival or surpass gold’s $21 trillion market capitalization within the next decade.

Despite tariff uncertainty limiting risk appetite among investors, research analysts remain optimistic about Bitcoin’s (BTC) long-term prospects for the next decade.

“When I think about where Bitcoin will be in 10 years, there are two models I admire,” Burnett said. “One is the parallel model, which suggests that Bitcoin will be about $1.8 million in 2035.” “The other is Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin 24 model, which suggests Bitcoin will be $2.1 million by 2035.”

Burnett emphasized that both are “good base cases,” adding that Bitcoin’s trajectory could exceed these predictions depending on broader macroeconomic factors.

🎙Could Bitcoin really hit $10m by Q1 2035? Perhaps.

But first, we need to unravel the tangled web of the markets this week, and for both discussions, @rkbaggs and @gazza_jenks are joined today by Joe Burnett (@IIICapital) on the #CHAINREACTION show! https://t.co/hfyEwGUCsh

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) April 11, 2025

Bitcoin outlook remains long-term bullish

“The automobile industry is significantly more valuable than the horse and buggy industry,” Burnett said, adding that Bitcoin’s more advanced technological properties will make it surpass the $21 trillion market capitalization of gold. He added:

“The gold market is an estimated $21 trillion market. If Bitcoin just hit $21 trillion and had Bitcoin-gold parity, Bitcoin would be $1 million per coin today.”

Since US President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, global markets have been under pressure due to heightened trade war fears. Hours after taking office, Trump threatened to impose sweeping import tariffs aimed at reducing the country’s trade deficit, weighing on risk sentiment across both equities and crypto.

While Bitcoin’s role as a safe-haven asset may reemerge amid ongoing trade war concerns, physical gold and tokenized gold remain the current winners.

Bitcoin still on track for $1.8M in 2035, says analyst — *Top tokenized gold assets, trading volume. Source: CoinGecko, Cex.io*

Tariff fears led tokenized gold trading volume to surge to a two-year high this week, topping $1 billion for the first time since the US banking crisis in 2023, Cointelegraph reported on April 10.

Strong hands hold during drawdowns

Bitcoin’s volatility is falling during both bear and bull markets, signaling its growing maturity as an asset class.

While another 80% drawdown during future bear markets is still possible, this will act as a robust acquisition period for the “strongest” holders, Burnett said, adding:

“The highs bring [Bitcoin] attention, and the deep, dark bear markets move coins into the hands of the strongest, most convicted holders, as fast as possible.”

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and chief investment officer at Maelstrom, predicted Bitcoin could climb to $250,000 by the end of 2025 if the US Federal Reserve formally enters a quantitative easing cycle.

Despite the optimistic predictions, investors remain cautious and continue “rebalancing their portfolios” but are unlikely to take on significant positions in the next 90 days before markets gain more clarity on global tariff negotiations, Enmanuel Cardozo, market analyst at real-world asset tokenization platform Brickken, told Cointelegraph.

“With money flowing out of Bitcoin ETFs, investors are looking for safer spots to hold their cash right now, including strong currencies. Gold’s a traditional vehicle in these cases and a go-to when markets are uncertain,” he added.

Since the beginning of 2025, the price of gold has risen over 23%, outperforming Bitcoin, which has fallen by more than 10% year-to-date, TradingView data shows.

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SEC and Binance push for another pause in lawsuit after ‘productive’ talks

Published

8 hours ago

April 12, 2025

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<div>SEC and Binance push for another pause in lawsuit after 'productive' talks</div>

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and crypto exchange Binance have asked a US federal judge for an additional two-month pause in their nearly two-year legal battle.

“Since the Court stayed this case, the Parties have been in productive discussions, including discussions concerning how the efforts of the crypto task force may impact the SEC’s claims,” both parties said in an April 11 joint status report with the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

SEC requests Binance to agree to the extension

According to the filing, the SEC requested and Binance agreed to another 60-day extension as the regulator continues to seek permission to “approve any resolution or changes to the scope of this litigation.”

“The Defendants agreed that continuing the stay is appropriate and in the interest of judicial economy,” the filing said.

The request comes not long after the SEC dropped a string of crypto-related lawsuits against crypto exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini, as well as Robinhood and Consenys.

At the end of the 60-day period, the SEC and Binance plan to submit another joint status report. This marks the second 60-day pause the SEC and Binance have requested this year, following a previous extension granted by the judge on Feb. 11.

SEC, United States, Binance — *The recently launched crypto task force was a key reason behind the request for the second extension. Source:* *CourtListener*

The request in February came just days after crypto skeptic Gary Gensler stepped down as SEC chair on Jan. 20, with crypto-friendly SEC commissioner Mark Uyeda taking over as acting chair.

At the time, the SEC and Binance also cited the establishment of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force as a reason for the pause.

Formed just a day after Gensler resigned on Jan. 21, the task force said it aims to “help the Commission draw clear regulatory lines, provide realistic paths to registration, craft sensible disclosure frameworks, and deploy enforcement resources judiciously.”

The SEC’s legal battle with Binance has dragged on for almost two years. It began in June 2023 when the agency filed a lawsuit against Binance, its US platform, and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.

The US regulator pressed 13 charges against Binance, including unregistered offers and sales of the BNB and Binance USD tokens, the Simple Earn and BNB Vault products, and its staking program.

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US crypto industry needs band-aid now, ‘long-term solution’ later — Uyeda

Published

14 hours ago

April 12, 2025

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<div>US crypto industry needs band-aid now, 'long-term solution' later — Uyeda</div>

A fast-tracked temporary crypto regulatory framework could bolster innovation within the US crypto industry while permanent regulations are still in the works, says acting US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Mark Uyeda.

“A time-limited, conditional exemptive relief framework for registrants and non-registrants could allow for greater innovation with blockchain technology within the United States in the near term,” Uyeda said at the SEC’s April 11 Crypto Task Force roundtable titled “Between a Block and a Hard Place: Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading.”

Relief measures may address immediate challenges

Uyeda said this might be the short-term answer as the SEC works toward a “long-term solution,” at the roundtable with SEC members and crypto industry executives, including Uniswap Labs’ Katherine Minarik, Cumberland DRW’s Chelsea Pizzola, and Coinbase’s Gregory Tusar.

He flagged state-by-state regulation of crypto trading as a concern, warning it could lead to a “patchwork of state licensing regimes.”

Uyeda said that a favorable federal regulatory framework would ease the burden for market participants wishing to offer tokenized securities and non-security crypto assets, allowing them to operate under a single SEC license instead of navigating “fifty different state licenses.”

He urged crypto market participants to share feedback on areas where “exemptive relief” could be appropriate.

US crypto industry needs band-aid now, 'long-term solution' later — Uyeda — *Source:* *US Securities and Exchange Commission*

Uyeda also reiterated the benefits of blockchain technology in financial markets during the roundtable discussion.

“Blockchain technology offers the potential to execute and clear securities transactions in ways that may be more efficient and reliable than current processes,” Uyeda said.

Uyeda to fill chair position until Atkins is sworn in

“Blockchains can be used to manage and mobilize collateral in tokenized form to increase capital efficiency and liquidity,” he added.

Uyeda will continue serving as acting SEC chair until US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Paul Atkins, is officially sworn in.

On April 10, the US Senate confirmed Atkins as chair of the SEC in a 52-44 vote largely along party lines.

Uyeda has served as acting SEC chair since Jan. 20, succeeding former chair and crypto skeptic Gary Gensler. He’s been widely seen within the industry as a pro-crypto advocate.

On March 18, Cointelegraph reported that Uyea said the SEC could change or scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers.

“I have asked the SEC staff to work closely with the crypto task force to consider appropriate alternatives, including its withdrawal,” Uyeda said.

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