Owners Face New Trap In Their Bid To Sell Flats Hit By Grenfell Cladding Crisis

Thousands of people are stuck in flats they cannot sell or remortgage despite government efforts to persuade banks to drop fire-safety cladding checks on low-rise buildings. The government announced in July that external wall surveys, or EWS1 certificates, which have become commonplace since the Grenfell disaster, would no longer be required on buildings not higher than 18 metres. But banks and building societies are still insisting on checks which, due to a shortage of qualified and insured fire engineers, can take months or even years to carry out. Read more on the Observer website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/26/owners-face-new-trap-in-their-bid-to-sell-flats-hit-by-grenfell-cladding-crisis 

Thousands Of Leaseholders In Unsafe Homes Will Be Unable To Sue Developers

Thousands of leaseholders living in dangerous blocks will not be protected by the latest government attempt to tackle the spiralling cost of the post-Grenfell fire safety crisis, it has emerged, as ministers publish legislation allowing developers to pass on costs to residents. The housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, introduced a bill extending leaseholders’ rights to sue developers, but residents in at least 239 buildings will not be able to take advantage because their buildings are too old, according to research by the UK Cladding Action Group. The study appears to undermine Jenrick’s claim that the “lion’s share” of the buildings identified as fitted with dangerous cladding would qualify under the 15-year retrospective law. Read more on the Guardian website.

Thousands of leaseholders in unsafe homes will be unable to sue developers | Housing | The Guardian

Housing Associations Eye Bulk Sales Of Shared Ownership Stock

Housing associations are looking to offload shared ownership stock to private bidders in a move to free up cash. Rising costs linked to fire safety works and net zero carbon targets are leading housing associations to consider large-scale disposals of their shared ownership stock. Affordable housing is seen as an attractive option for investors who are mindful of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. These investors also find shared ownership attractive because it offers both retail price index-linked (RPI) rent increases as well as some exposure to house price growth. Read more on Inside Housing.

Inside Housing - News - Housing associations eye bulk sales of shared ownership stock to private investors to boost cash

Final Fire Safety Works Being Carried Out On High-Rise Blocks In Nottingham

Following the devastating fire at Grenfell, which happened four years ago, Nottingham City Council agreed to fund £8.5 million in fire safety enhancement works to tower blocks and flats across the city. Nottingham City Homes (NCH) has carried out the works, which include retrofitting sprinklers in high rise flats and communal areas of 13 high rise blocks, upgrading existing intercoms with new video display screens and door entry systems and upgrading existing tannoys. NCH had already retrofitted sprinklers in four blocks of low-rise flats before Grenfell, and routinely includes sprinklers in new apartment developments. Read more on the Hucknall Dispatch website.

https://www.hucknalldispatch.co.uk/news/people/grenfell-anniversary-final-high-rise-fire-safety-works-being-carried-out-on-council-blocks-in-nottingham-3272370 

Landlord Spends £22m Buying Back Homes

In its unaudited accounts for 2020/21, Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) said it has purchased 73 of the 105 homes on the Paragon Estate in west London, which was evacuated in October last year after an intrusive survey identified several building safety concerns. NHG evacuated roughly 1,000 residents, including students living in student accommodation, while further investigative work was undertaken. It said this investigative work, which will “establish the full extent of any required structural and fire safety works”, is not yet complete and in the meantime NHG has offered to buy back the homes of leaseholders, including shared owners. Read more on Inside Housing.

Inside Housing - News - G15 landlord spends £22m buying back homes on development evacuated over safety issues

Leaseholders ‘Horrified’ After Final Vote On £10bn Fire Safety Costs

Homeowners have reacted with “horror” after parliament finally voted against protecting them from post-Grenfell fire safety costs that could run to £10bn. Campaigners for hundreds of thousands of people trapped with devastating bills to make their homes safe said Wednesday night’s vote in the House of Lords against protecting them “pulls the rug from under a generation of leaseholders”. It comes after weeks of debates in parliament in which the government rejected calls from Labour and about 30 rebel Tory MPs for them to meet the cost and recoup the money from property developers. Read more on the Guardian website.

Leaseholders ‘horrified’ after final vote on £10bn fire safety costs | Grenfell Tower fire | The Guardian

Grenfell: Survivors Condemn New Fire Safety Laws

New laws that could leave flat owners facing bills for fire safety measures are "indefensible", say Grenfell Tower survivors and bereaved relatives. The Fire Safety Act is aimed at making homes safer following the 2017 blaze, in which 72 people died. But a push to include more financial protections for leaseholders was defeated in a Parliamentary vote, despite a large Tory rebellion. The government has made a £5bn fund available to remove cladding. Read more on the BBC website.

Grenfell: Survivors condemn new fire safety laws - BBC News 

True Cost Of Cladding Crisis As High As £50bn

The true cost of the national fire safety recladding project is 10 times higher than the Government’s allocated funding, according to one of the largest specialist contractors in the Midlands. The government has set aside £5bn for cladding remediation works but this falls woefully short of the £50bn estimate Colmore Tang Construction believes is needed to make every high-rise housing development compliant. The firm has priced remedial projects on over 20 typical developments. It found the average cost of these works to be around £4.65m for buildings above 18m and £2m for buildings between 11m and 18m, which they claim is fair reflection of typical costs across the country. Read more on the Construction Enquirer website.

https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2021/04/20/true-cost-of-cladding-crisis-as-high-as-50bn/ 

New Watchdog Tells England's High-Rise Builders To 'Get Your Act Together'

High-rise builders with poor fire safety records will be targeted by a new watchdog with the power to mount civil and criminal prosecutions, its chief inspector has said in his first interview. Peter Baker said he was “determined that the new building safety regime prevents anything like the Grenfell tragedy from ever happening again” and he hoped to avoid any repeat of the building safety crisis that has landed hundreds of thousands of leaseholders with huge bills to fix fire safety faults. He said the regulator would deter builders from “dodging and weaving” safety responsibilities, and he warned firms to “pull their bootstraps up” or risk sanctions. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/05/peter-baker-buildings-watchdog-england-get-your-act-together-grenfell

Commons Defeat Leaves Flat Owners Facing Huge Bills To Fix Cladding

A plan to protect leaseholders from the spiralling costs of fixing fire safety problems in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster has been rejected in parliament after the government headed off a cross-party challenge. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners are facing bills of up to £100,000 to repair dangerous cladding, fire doors and insulation systems, but ministers opposed proposals from the House of Lords, Labour and some Conservative backbenchers to protect them from costs. Amendments to the fire safety bill were defeated in a Commons vote after Labour accused the government of moving “at a snail’s pace” to tackle the problem. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/24/commons-defeat-leaves-flat-owners-facing-huge-bills-to-fix-cladding 

Manager Warned Cladding Firm To ‘Urgently’ Improve Safety Years Before Grenfell Fire

A manager at the manufacturer that sold combustible ACM panels to be used on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment warned colleagues two years before the fatal fire that the cladding was dangerous and a safer version should be sold instead. Arconic technical manager Claude Wehrle’s warning came shortly after the firm’s US parent company had sought an assessment of the Reynobond PE panels produced in France and sold into the UK market. Read more on the Housing Today website.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/manager-warned-cladding-firm-to-urgently-improve-safety-years-before-grenfell-fire/5110570.article 

Grenfell Cladding Boss Denies ‘Deliberate Concealment’ Of Test Results

The president of Arconic has denied that it was “deliberate concealment” not to tell British regulators that its cladding product had burned in a test, the Grenfell inquiry has heard. Claude Schmidt said that the British Board of Agrément (BBA) “could have found out” about the test results of its Reynobond PE cassettes, which were installed as part of Grenfell Tower’s refurbishment. In 2005, the firm had tested two versions of its Reynobond PE cladding. The first had been on a riveted form of the product, which had resulted in a Euroclass B rating, allowing it to be used on the external walls of high rise buildings. The second was on a folded version which had “performed disastrously”, releasing seven times more heat and three times as much smoke than the riveted version. Read more on the Housing Today website.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/grenfell-cladding-boss-denies-deliberate-concealment-of-test-results/5110507.article

Grenfell: Arconic Boss Says Fire Safety Tests Were Not His 'Priority'

The boss of the company that made the Grenfell Tower cladding has said it was not his "priority" to understand fire safety tests and certificates. Claude Schmidt, president of Arconic, told the inquiry into the fire that he only learned about a key British fire safety standard after the disaster. It also heard claims the French firm "arranged" for some fire tests to pass. Arconic is being investigated for not informing a British standards board about failed tests. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56089596

Social Landlords ‘Face £10bn Bill To Fix Fire Safety Problems’

Social landlords have warned they are facing a bill of more than £10bn to fix fire safety problems after the Grenfell Tower disaster and that much-needed affordable housebuilding is in jeopardy unless the government funds a bailout. The cost is at least 25 times greater than the £400m budgeted for so far by ministers for housing associations to remove Grenfell-style cladding. It emerged as pressure grows on Downing Street to sanction a separate bailout of private leaseholders estimated at more than £2bn, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners unable to sell or mortgage their homes. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/02/social-landlords-face-10bn-bill-to-fix-fire-safety-problems

Jenrick Warns Of ‘Name And Shame’ Approach To Cladding Remediation

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has said he’s ready to name and shame building owners and developers who have yet to complete cladding remediation work. Jenrick told the Commons there was now “no excuse for inaction”. The Home Office, he said, was also ready to back related enforcement work by councils through a new Fire Safety Bill. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/jenrick-warns-of-name-and-shame-approach-to-cladding-remediation/

Barking Fire: Social Tenants Told To Return Despite Safety Fears

Social housing residents of a block of flats in east London that was recently engulfed in flames say they are being forced to move back despite safety fears. All residents at Samuel Garside House in Barking were evacuated after a fire on 9 June. About 100 firefighters and 15 fire engines were dispatched to deal with the blaze. The majority of residents were put in hotel accommodation, while others were rehomed in temporary accommodation. The landlord for social tenants, Southern Housing Group, has now informed residents that they will no longer receive financial support to stay in alternative accommodation and must return to their flats. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/13/samuel-garside-residents-move-back-despite-fire-safety-fears

Anger As Grenfell Boss Is Invited To Speak At Housing Safety Event

A housing boss in charge of Grenfell Tower before it went up in flames has been chosen to speak at a national housing conference on improving building safety, in a move that has provoked fury among survivors. Sacha Jevans, who was the executive director of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed the building and oversaw the £10m recladding works that left it compromised with fire risks, has been invited to lecture on ways to “improve risk management and building safety post-Grenfell” at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Manchester in June. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/02/anger-grenfell-boss-invited-speak-housing-safety-event

57% Of Respondents Not Given Fire Safety Information By Landlord

A survey by a single property group found 57% of respondents have not been given any fire safety information by their landlord, with 33% having only “basic information” and 14% thinking information they were given on fire safety to be good. Horbury Property Services, part of the Horbury Group, ran a survey to mark Fire Door Safety Week. Despite references to a lack of information, the survey found fire safety knowledge to be improved over the 2017 Fire Door Safety Week survey – 68% of those surveyed knew that a fire door should be inspected every six months. In the same survey 12 months earlier, only 40% of those surveyed answered correctly. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/survey-shows-57-of-respondents-not-given-fire-safety-information-by-landlord/

High-Rise Tenants Being Ignored Like We Were, Say Grenfell Survivors

Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have widened their campaign against the marginalisation of council tenants, raising concerns that others are being treated in the same way as they were before the disaster. Nicholas Burton, whose wife died as a result of the fire, and Edward Daffarn, who escaped, are helping residents at nine council-owned tower blocks in Salford that were refurbished using similar combustible cladding at the same time as Grenfell. They have heard claims from tenants that their concerns about safety were not being handled properly. After he visited the Pendleton estate and spoke to residents, Burton said: “It’s just like turning back the clock.” Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/24/high-rise-tenants-being-ignored-like-we-were-say-grenfell-survivors-salford

Social Housing Green Paper Expected In Next Six Weeks

In a statement to the House of Commons, James Brokenshire said the paper, promised by his predecessor Sajid Javid at last year’s National Housing Federation conference, would be published 24 July. Mr Brokenshire said: “It is essential that people living in buildings like Grenfell Tower are not only safe but they feel the state understands their lives and works for them. There is no question that their faith in this has been shaken. “Which is why – as well as strengthening building and fire safety – we’ll be publishing a Social Housing Green Paper by recess.” Read more on Inside Housing.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:shqpwokgvM8J:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/social-housing-green-paper-expected-in-next-six-weeks-56741+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&safe=vss