Homeowners who face a £600k bill for crumbling wall
OWNERS of new-build homes face being charged thousands of pounds if walls or roads near their properties need repairing, an alarming case has revealed.
More than 100 residents in a block of flats in Edinburgh have been hit with a £600,000 bill to replace a crumbling wall they were never told was their responsibility. The Blandfield development in the Scottish capital is home to many elderly and disabled people, who are now being chased for around £6,000 each.
Last month, residents were given 28 days to find the cash or face debt recovery action — even though some can’t afford to pay.
When construction giant Barratt sold the homes 15 years ago, it did not spell out that the Victorian wall on the edge of the development was on their land, meaning the owners shared responsibility for its upkeep.
It has become common on new housing developments across Britain for roads and other public areas to remain in private ownership, rather than being taken over and maintained by the council.
In 2004, the wall, bordering a now disused rail line, had an emergency repair notice slapped on it by the local council.
For years, there were arguments over who was responsible for arranging the work.
Then, in 2014, following a threat of court action by Network Rail, the property managers FirstPort called a meeting to tell residents they would have to pay up to £1 million. This estimate has since been reduced to around £600,000, or £6,000 per flat.
The case highlights a liability time bomb that can hit buyers of new-build properties, particularly on the brownfield sites that experts say are key to tackling Britain’s housing shortage.
Nick Brown, 31, who runs an ironing and dog-walking firm from his Blandfield flat, says: ‘It was a complete shock and some people were in tears. We just couldn’t believe it.
‘ Some of our neighbours are housebound and others just don’t have a huge income. We had no idea this wall mattered so much, let alone that we would be liable for it.
‘I just don’t know whether everyone will be able to pay.’
Stuart Hay, chairman of the residents’ association, who bought his flat in 2006, says: ‘We have ended up owning a wall we didn’t expect to be owning, through no fault of the residents who bought in good faith. You expect these land issues to be properly resolved when you buy.’
The freight- only railway line has not been used by any trains since December, though Network Rail says it is still needed.
The title plans Barratt gave to the residents when they bought the flats showed the wall as being outside the ‘mutual area’ for which they are responsible under the deed of conditions.
Yet when the residents took legal advice from Professor Robert Rennie, a partner at Harper Macleod and one of Scotland’s top property lawyers, he confirmed the wall had been owned by Barratt and so was correctly passed to the residents.
The residents’ association commissioned an engineering report, which suggested Barratt may have destabilised the 150year-old wall when building the flats. Mr Hay says the association has tried to contact Barratt, without success. ‘They appear to have no interest in helping us,’ he adds. Robert Robertson, 74, a retired baker who lives in the flats with his wife Ann, 73, says: ‘I am disgusted because Barratt has taken no responsibility, Network Rail has taken no responsibility and it’s all been passed to owners. ‘We are pensioners, my wife is disabled, and there is no way we could find £5,000 in one go, so we’ve been paying £150 a month since November.’
Mary Rankin, 88, a retired doctor’s wife, who is disabled, says: ‘We’ve paid £7,000, including a lawyer to look into it. This wall dates from the 1800s — Barratt must have known about it.’
Paula Higgins, of campaign group HomeOwners Alliance, says conveyancers should flag up the importance of walls and roads for which residents are liable. It is not known which conveyancing firms the Blandfield buyers used, however, as recently as January 2013, Barratt’s website stated that ‘all Barratt offers are subject to the use of a Barratt nominated independent mortgage advisor and solicitor’, according to the website brand-newhomes.co.uk.
This practice was supposed to have been banned by an industrywide code in April 2010, and the requirement has since been removed from Barratt’s terms and conditions. A property lawyer in Edinburgh told Money Mail: ‘Nowadays, developments will have a deed of conditions, which makes the residents responsible for anything that goes wrong on the site.
‘When Barratt applied to build the flats, it would have notified Network Rail, which could have made sure that fixing the wall was a condition of planning permission from the council.’
But an Edinburgh council source said that making sure the wall was sound could not have been a condition in granting planning approval.
A Network Rail spokesman says: ‘We understand this has been a difficult situation for the residents, but we have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the railway and those who use it.’
FirstPort Property Services says it worked with Network Rail and the council to reduce costs from £9,000 per household to nearer £6,000, adding: ‘Works will commence once owners have contributed their share.’
A Barratt spokesman says: ‘We sympathise with the residents, but we have no record of any contact from them on these issues since the site was completed in 2002.
‘We would be happy to review any relevant documentation they have and any legal information from their solicitors with a view to discussing the problems.’