£9bn cladding black hole
As MPs vote down a Bill to protect leaseholders from huge fire safety costs, how desperate property owners are now staring into a . . .
BRITaIn’S cladding crisis faces a £9 billion black hole despite developers vowing to pay £400 million to fix faulty buildings, a daily Mail audit reveals. The money promised by one construction giant could cover as little as 13 pc of the total bill faced by its leaseholders, leaving scores of homeowners facing shock bills for thousands of pounds.
Multi-million pound firms have repeatedly refused to say how many of their buildings require costly repairs, making it impossible to tell whether their funds are adequate. others are wriggling off the hook by refusing to cover costs for blocks they built but no longer own.
Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders are stuck in unsafe flats after the Grenfell disaster exposed deadly safety flaws.
MPs estimate it will cost £15 billion to resolve the crisis — and there has been a slew of pledges since the Mail launched its campaign 12 weeks ago.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has more than trebled the Government’s funding pot to £5.1 billion, while developers have set aside cash of their own.
But it’s thought a planned developer tax, that will bring in £2 billion over a decade, will be used to claw back the taxpayer’s outlay. Including £400 million set aside by developers themselves, it means there is still £9 billion missing.
Campaigners say the Government fund is a ‘drop in the ocean’ and accuse ministers of allowing developers to get away with ‘token gestures’. Even John Tutte, chairman of house builder Redrow, admits a £200 million-a-year developer tax is not ‘a massive amount’ for the industry to pay.
MaRTIn Boyd, chairman of charity Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, believes ministers have been spooked by industry claims that too harsh a levy will hinder their ability to build new homes. But he dismisses this as scaremongering.
Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley says: ‘If the work is going to be done and there is no detriment to leaseholders to say which buildings they are, which buildings are they?’
Meanwhile, construction giants argue they cannot be held solely responsible. Industry sources claim only 5 pc to 8 pc of fire-trap flats have been built by big developers, while faults are often down to subcontractors or suppliers. But Mr Boyd says: ‘That’s their problem. Car manufacturers buy all their bits from subcontractors, but you don’t see Toyota turning around and saying: “It’s not really our fault, it’s our brake supplier.” ’
developers point out that cladding now deemed unsafe complied with regulations at the time. But missing fire breaks and other noncladding defects have never been allowed. In these cases, firms hide behind the defective Premises act, which only gives six years to claim.
The Government is reluctant to remove the onus from the building industry ‘to do the right thing’ by paying upfront in full itself. on Monday, 33 Tory MPs rebelled against Government plans to allow building owners to pass on costs to leaseholders but lost by a majority of 69. a Government spokesperson says: ‘We are making industry pay for the mistakes of the past with a new levy and tax to contribute to the costs of remediation, backed by £5 billion Government funding and a generous capped finance scheme to ensure leaseholders are protected.’