Residents at an east London apartment block have been warned they face bills of up to £150,000 to pay for urgent repairs needed to make their homes safe from fire.
The occupants of Verdigris Apartments in Bethnal Green are among hundreds of thousands across London and around the country caught up in the “cladding crisis” that has unfolded since the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Owners of the 50 homes in the block were told essential remediation will include replacing the external cladding system, removing and replacing wooden balconies, and fixing inadequacies in the fire breaks system.
Leaseholder Julia Barber said they have been told the bill could be up to £150,000 per home – one of the highest in the country - and no one knows who is going to pay it.
“Right now there is an omnipresent threat that the cost is going to be passed on to leaseholders”, she told the Evening Standard.
Their eight-storey apartment block was built in 2012 by developer Hill and has been managed by housing association Tower Hamlets Community Housing.
The government has so far provided £1.6 billion to pay for work to remove unsafe cladding on buildings over 18 metres, but nothing to cover other fire safety repairs. It is estimated putting all the unsafe buildings right could cost up to £15 billion.
“We might get something from the fund, something from Hill, and we might be liable”, said Ms Barber.
“The ultimate outcome would be for the fund to be increased and for individual private building developers to be held to account.”
The Government is coming under growing pressure to increase the amount of money available to take the financial pressure off leaseholders. A Commons debate called by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer yesterday demanded protection for “leaseholders and taxpayers from the cost by pursuing those responsible for the cladding crisis”.
Mr Barber said she is among the leaseholders who have tried but failed to sell their homes, blaming the cladding crisis for sales falling through.
“It’s putting a halt on people’s lives and putting a massive cork in the housing market”, she said.
Ms Barber added that they now have a 24-hour ‘waking watch’ in the building, imposed from March last year due to the absence of a fire alarm system.
“We have it looming over us and it could pop up in the service charge at any moment”, she said of the cost of the waking watch.
The leaseholders have formed action group and have engaged law firm Blake Morgan to fight their case.
