The Government has announced a new £3.5 billion fund for the removal of unsafe cladding, but the long-suffering owners of some flats in Salford who are facing huge bills don't know if they'll be eligible for any of it.
As part of his announcement to the House of Commons Housing secretary Robert Jenrick unveiled a five-point plan to “end the cladding scandal” and provide reassurance to homeowners.
The plan includes a £3.5bn fund to remove unsafe cladding from buildings over 18 metres to remove unsafe cladding "at no costs to residents" on top of £1.6bn safety fund that leaseholders can currently apply for.
For leaseholders in low rise buildings (11-18 metres) where dangerous cladding is to be removed, Mr Jenrick has announced a new long-term, low-interest scheme which will be capped at £50 a month towards the removal of unsafe cladding.
Flat owners like the ones in Millennium Tower and Point in Salford have been left with the prospect of huge bills for fire-safety repairs after 2017’s Grenfell disaster but are unsure if they will be eligible for funding.
While the cladding has been deemed safe, an investigation into the cladding system on the buildings found that the there was a compartmentation issue which has been described as a problem to do with the “standard of workmanship” in the building that has left the building unsafe and in need of repair.
Madalin Borcanea lives in Millennium Point with his wife Anca and newborn Mara and they are part of the group of leaseholders who the ‘eye-watering’ bill could land on.
He has welcomed the new funding but is still unsure about what it means for him and his family as their problem is to do with a ‘non-cladding’ issue.
“We’re 18 metres high so we tick that box, but we’ll have to wait for the legislation to come out to see if we’re covered.” He told the Manchester Evening News.
“Our problem isn’t necessarily with the cladding, its to do with the fire barriers which are in the building,
“We know what the problem is and we know what the solution should be but we’re not getting that from them at the moment.
“There are still other people in our position who are still unclear on what our position is, the 120 flats that we have in our building are still nowhere near the end of this.”
Initial estimates for repairs are for between £7m and £16.5m to repair - and this may leave leaseholders like Madalin and his wife with an average contribution of £50k per leaseholder and, in the worst-case scenario, some leaseholder contributions could be well over £100k
Last year the government announced a £1.6bn building safety fund, but pressure grew for minsters to increase the pot for residents stuck in their buildings.
The Government is working with industry to reduce the need for EWS1 forms, preventing leaseholders from facing delays and allowing hundreds of thousands of homes to be sold, bought, or re-mortgaged once again.
The Housing Secretary today announced plans to introduce a ‘Gateway 2’ developer levy. The proposed levy will be targeted and apply when developers seek permission to develop certain high-rise buildings in England.
The property managers for Millennium Tower and Point, Hadrian Property have applied to the Building Safety Fund, and say they plan on applying for the recently-announced fund but they are also exploring other avenues to avoid residents from paying large sums of money that would effectively leave them bankrupt.
A spokesperson for Hadrian Property said: “We are doing everything we can to avoid leaseholders being landed with the bill including watching out for government funding availability.
“But we are also all other paths including pursuing the main contractor who built the site and pursuing the building guarantee policy.”
