Punished for PAYING UP!

As the cladding crisis rages, scandal of the homeowners shut out of £1 bn support fund... for trying to make flats safe

WHen ministers launched a £1 billion fund last year to replace dangerous cladding, nathan Prescott thought he had been saved from financial disaster.

But his hope turned to despair when he found out his building would not qualify for support — because vital repairs had already begun.

Mr Prescott is one of 98 leaseholders at Skyline Central 1, a luxury apartment block in Manchester, who are paying up to £27,000 each to cover the costs themselves.

the 44- year- old has already been forced to move out because he can’t afford the bills and says homeowners are being ‘punished’ for getting on with the job at hand.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners in unsafe flats face paying life-changing sums to fix serious safety defects identified in the aftermath of the grenfell tower fire in London in June 2017.

Just 202 out of an estimated 11,760 dangerous buildings have been fixed, and experts believe work will take another ten years to complete at the current rate.

Families trapped in unsafe flats are still waiting for funds to be released — but the vast majority are set to miss out altogether because of shortfalls in government support.

Ministers have set aside a total of £1.6 billion to fund remediation work but MPs estimate the overall cost will be closer to £15 billion.

the current pot excludes thousands of unsafe buildings because only those over a certain height and with particular types of defect are covered.

But Skyline leaseholders are thought to be the only group to be denied cash because repairs started too soon.

THe most recent government fund was announced last March but excludes buildings where work had already begun. the Mail is calling on ministers to fix the scandal within 18 months and spare leaseholders the crippling financial burdens.

We are demanding that necessary funding is made available as soon as possible, as work cannot begin in earnest until it does.

in 2019, leaseholders at Skyline were asked by their freeholder, Adriatic Land, to choose between accepting liability for the remediation costs or potentially losing their homes.

Pursuing the developer was not an option because it had gone bust and there was no funding available at the time that covered the type of cladding on their building. So leaseholders agreed to pay over a five-year period, interest free, which meant vital repair work could begin.

When the £1 billion fund was announced last year that did cover their cladding, residents at first thought they had been spared the cost.

But their hopes were crushed when they realised the criteria barred buildings where work had already been planned or started. they sought a judicial review last August but this was rejected by a High Court judge.

Aviation worker Mr Prescott has been forced to move out because he lost his job during the pandemic and can’t afford his monthly £309 cladding bill.

He is now living with his partner and renting out his flat, which he bought for £175,000 in 2016. He said: ‘i was so excited when i bought it. it was listed as a luxury build, with a swimming pool, gym and sauna. now i’d give it all up just to have something safe.

‘As far as i’m aware, we are the only people in the country who have been punished in this way. to be denied funding because work had already started is another perfect example of just how unfair this scandal is.’

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick is facing mounting pressure to fix the crisis after the Mail’s campaign received backing from MPs of all parties, including 16 tory backbenchers.

A spokesman for Homeground, the acting agent for Adriatic Land, says the government’s decision to deny funding to Skyline is ‘ extremely misconceived and unfair’. He added: ‘ Leaseholders should not be penalised as a result of proactive work that was carried out to keep them safe.

‘if funding from the government had been made available earlier, or buildings like Skyline not been unfairly excluded from funding, then none of this would have happened.’

A government spokesman said: ‘ the purpose of the Building Safety Fund is to speed up the removal and replacement of cladding on buildings where the work has not already started.

‘We are considering options to fund future remediation work and we will provide an update in due course.’