Pensioners are STILL paying off £30k bill for danger panels
AN elderly couple are still paying off a £30,000 bill for potentially lethal cladding on their block even as it is being removed – because it is the same kind that was used on Grenfell Tower.
Most residents of the Taplow block on the Chalcots estate in North London have been evacuated by the council, but as private flat owners, Michael and Margaret De Micheli have refused to leave.
In addition to the bill for the cladding, they also have to pay a service charge of more than £1,600 year, with the next instalment due tomorrow.
‘We are being crucified having to pay it back – it’s like a second mortgage,’ said Mr De Micheli, 73, who still has to work as a traffic warden to pay the debt.
‘Why am I supposed to go on paying for this shoddy work on this death trap I’m living in?’
The couple said the financial burden had destroyed their plans to sell up and retire at a seaside resort.
They bought the leasehold on their three-bedroom flat from Camden Council under the Right to Buy scheme in 1990.
The council remained freeholders, and after the cladding was put up in 2006, the De Michelis were told to pay £2,000 a year, in monthly instalments, for 15 years. It means they still have more than four years of payments left.
A council spokesman said leaseholders would not have to pay for removing the cladding, or service charges for any time they are not living in the building.