The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Developers under pressure to pay cladding repair costs
Builders warned not to pass million-pound bills on to residents, writes Adam Williams
Housebuilders should use their huge profits to fund the cost of cladding repair works, politicians and campaigners have urged. The cladding crisis has had a devastating effect on Britain’s property market, with millions of homeowners unable to sell their homes because of Grenfell-style materials on their properties. A wider building safety scandal has erupted after cladding inspections uncovered many cases of defective insulation, missing fire breaks and flammable balconies.
Residents have called for housebuilders to pay for repairs, which can quickly reach millions of pounds per block. However, the developers behind just half of the private sector towers with the most dangerous cladding have agreed to foot the bills.
Lord Greenhalgh, the building safety minister, called on developers to “do the right thing” and said that industry profit margins had increased by 10 percentage points since 2013.
Campaigners have also called for some developers to be blocked from Government contracts until the cladding crisis is resolved.
Anish Shah, 39, bought g a twobedroom flat at the High Point Village development t in Hayes, west London, from m developer Ballymore in 2016. 16. Mr Shah ( pictured right) paid £ 360,000 but is now ow unable to sell because e the building has failed d an External Wall Fire e Review (EWS1). Bally- more is one of the few w builders that owns and manages the blocks that it has built, rather than selling them on to another firm. However, it has refused to pay for some of the repair works, such as removing flammable balconies, leaving residents fearing huge bills.
Promotional materials for High Point Village boasted about the timber decking and the cladding system used, but these now need to be replaced at significant cost. Mr Shah said residents had bought their homes in good faith and were being asked to pay money to help fix problems not of their making.
Ballymore said repairs would not be completed until 2023 but that an application had been made to the Building Safety Fund. However, there is no guarantee this will be successful or meet the cost of the repair work.
Mr Shah said: “When is this nightmare going to end?”
Sebastian O’Kelly of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, a campaigning charity, called on Ballymore to fund all of the works itself. The business is structured across several companies, but Ballymore Limited’s profits in the most recent financial year were £86.7m.
“Ballymore is one of the few housebuilders who keep their freeholds and manage the sites themselves, evidently seeing this as too good an earning asset to turn away,” y Mr O’Kelly said. “It is disgracefu disgraceful that they have not remediated this mess.” Ballym Ballymore is also under investigation inves by reviews web website Trustpilot after a slew of positive comments were posted on the company’s page by its own employees. Trustpilot issued it with a formal cease and desist notice for “review fabrication”.
Lord Greenhalgh urged developers to pay for the removal of Grenfell-style cladding. “It is outrageous
Experts warn the total repair bill could be over £15bn
‘It is outrageous that developers have profited so considerably and are leaving leaseholders to shoulder the burden of industry failures’
that developers, who have profited so considerably over the last few years, should leave leaseholders to shoulder the burden of industry failures,” he said.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government would not say whether firms should be blocked from future government contracts.
Steve Turner of the Home Builders Federation, a trade body, said the industry was looking to “play its part” but that builders should not pay if the works were because of new, post-Grenfell safety standards. A spokesman for
Ballymore said High Point Village was signed off as compliant by the local authority and building control at the time of construction.
Ballymore said it would meet any legal obligations to pay for remedial work, but reserved the right to pass this cost on to residents if this was as a result of changing government guidance. “The safety of our residents and staff is paramount,” the firm said.
Staff have been ordered not to post reviews on Trustpilot in future, even if they are also Ballymore customers.