Cladding crisis sees f lat sales fall by half

SALES of flats have halved amid growing fears about Grenfell- style safety issues, official figures reveal.

In a worrying sign for the wider housing market, the number of flats sold in September, a usually busy month, fell by 48 per cent year-on-year to about 5,900.

It means transactions worth a total of £1.6billion were lost, according to Land Registry figures.

The massive drop – which outpaced a 26 per cent drop in house transactions – has implications for the wider housing market because collapsing flat sales can affect other deals further up the property ladder.

Campaigners claim fears about unsafe apartments are behind the decline. Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, hundreds of thousands of homeowners have been forced to remain in flats they cannot sell because their blocks have similar, potentially unsafe cladding.

The concerns have prompted some lenders to refuse mortgages on the properties, while leaseholders have been left to foot the bill for repairs.

Miles Shipside, from Rightmove, said the drop would leave the market ‘seriously undermined’ because ‘sellers of flats typically prop up the rest of the home-buying chain’.

Phil Spencer, a property expert and presenter of Channel 4’s Location, Location, Location, added that the figures were ‘shocking’. ‘It’s like taking half the first rung of the housing ladder away, which takes half of the second rung away, which takes part of the third rung away, and so on,’ he told The Sunday Times.

Tom Marshall, 31, and his fiancee Jessie Andrews, 27, saw the sale of their £245,000 flat collapse in September after the buyer’s lender refused a mortgage on the property.

The flat was part of a four- storey block in Sidcup, south-east London, that failed an ‘external wall system’ safety check. It meant that former soldier Mr Marshall and his partner had to pull out of their planned purchase of a three-bedroom Victorian terrace.

‘We were buying off a lady who lost her work contract over Covid-19,’ he told the newspaper.

‘She was also trying to free up capital to support her son and his family buy their first house.’