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.
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.
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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.
Image: Lisa Petty is facing a £21,000 bill to remove Grenfell-style cladding from her home
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.
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Housing developers have been told by Michael Gove to commit to repairing unsafe buildings or be banned from the market.
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.
Image: Patsy Sweeney and her husband don’t qualify for a cap on ‘extortionate’ non-cladding costs
“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?”
In common with many parents across the country, here’s a conversation that I have with my young daughter on a semi-regular basis (bear with me, this will take on some political relevance eventually).
Me: “So it’s 15 minutes until your bedtime, you can either have a little bit of TV or do a jigsaw, not both.”
Daughter: “Ummmm, I want to watch TV.”
Me: “That’s fine, but it’s bed after that, you can’t do a jigsaw as well.”
Fast-forward 15 minutes.
Me: “Right, TV off now please, bedtime.”
(Pause)
Daughter: “I want to do a jigsaw.”
Now replace me with the government, the TV and jigsaw options with axing welfare cuts and scrapping the two-child cap, and my daughter with rebellious backbenchers.
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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
That is the tension currently present between Downing Street and Labour MPs. And my initial ultimatum is the messaging being pumped out from the government this weekend.
In essence: you’ve had your welfare U-turn, so there’s no money left for the two-child cap to go as well.
As an aside – and before my inbox fills with angry emails lambasting me for using such a crude metaphor for policies that fundamentally alter the lives of some of the most vulnerable in society – yes, I hear you, and that’s part of my point.
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Welfare U-turn ‘has come at cost’
For many in Labour, this approach feels like the lives of their constituents are being used in a childish game of horse-trading.
So what can be done?
Well, the government could change the rules.
Altering the fiscal rules is – and will likely remain – an extremely unlikely solution. But as it happens, one of Labour’s proverbial grandparents has just popped round with a different suggestion.
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Welfare: ‘Didn’t get process right’ – PM
A wealth tax, Lord Neil Kinnock says, is the necessary outcome of the economic restrictions the party has placed on itself.
Ever the Labour storyteller, Lord Kinnock believes this would allow the government to craft a more compelling narrative about whose side this administration is on.
That could be valuable, given one of the big gripes from many backbench critics is that they still don’t really understand what this prime minister stands for – and by extension, what all these “difficult decisions” are in aid of.
The downside is whether it will actually raise much money.
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Is Corbyn an existential risk to Labour?
The super-rich may have lots of assets to take a slice from, but they also have expensive lawyers ready to find novel ways to keep their client’s cash away from the prying eyes of the state.
Or, of course, they could just leave – as many are doing already.
In the short term, the future is a bit easier to predict.
If Downing Street is indeed now saying there is no money to scrap the two-child cap (after heavy briefing in the opposite direction just weeks ago), an almighty tantrum from the backbenches is inevitable.
And as every parent knows, the more you give in, the harder it becomes to hold the line.
The UK has re-established diplomatic ties with Syria, David Lammy has said, as he made the first visit to the country by a British minister for 14 years.
The foreign secretary visited Damascus and met with interim president Ahmed al Sharaa, also the leader of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and foreign minister Asaad al Shaibani.
In a statement, Mr Lammy said a “stable Syria is in the UK’s interests” and added: “I’ve seen first-hand the remarkable progress Syrians have made in rebuilding their lives and their country.
“After over a decade of conflict, there is renewed hope for the Syrian people.
“The UK is re-establishing diplomatic relations because it is in our interests to support the new government to deliver their commitment to build a stable, more secure and prosperous future for all Syrians.”
Image: Foreign Secretary David Lammy with Syria’s interim president Ahmed al Sharaa in Damascus. Pic: X / @DavidLammy
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has also announced a £94.5m support package for urgent humanitarian aid and to support the country’s long-term recovery, after a number of British sanctions against the country were lifted in April.
While HTS is still classified as a proscribed terror group, Sir Keir Starmer said last year that it could be removed from the list.
The Syrian president’s office also said on Saturday that the president and Mr Lammy discussed co-operation, as well as the latest developments in the Middle East.
Since Assad fled Syria in December, a transitional government headed by Mr al Sharaa was announced in March and a number of western countries have restored ties.
In May, US President Donald Trump said the United States would lift long-standing sanctions on Syria and normalise relations during a speech at the US-Saudi investment conference.
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From May: Trump says US will end sanctions for Syria
He said he wanted to give the country “a chance at peace” and added: “There is a new government that will hopefully succeed.
“I say good luck, Syria. Show us something special.”
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