Crackdown on ‘shoddy’ property developers

HOME-OWNERS are to be given more than double the amount of time to pursue builders and developers who carry out “shoddy workmanship” on their properties, the Housing Secretary has confirmed.

Robert Jenrick said the Government will be changing the law to give home-owners 15 years – up from six – to take action against rogue developers.

The Cabinet Minister said the shift, reportedly included in the Building Safety Bill which is due out today, came after a realisation that some household appliances have better guarantees on them than new homes.

Taxpayers have been hit by a £5bn bill in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze, in which 72 people lost their lives, to pay for dangerous cladding to be stripped from apartment blocks.

Mr Jenrick, speaking to BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, said yesterday: “It’s a very large sum of money to try to help those leaseholders.

“But it should be the builders and the developers who should be paying for this. It is not right that either the leaseholder or the taxpayer has to step up.

“I’m announcing today that we’re going to change the law retrospectively to give every homeowner 15 years in which to take action against the people who built their building if there’s shoddy workmanship.

“I wish we hadn’t reached this point, I wish more developers had paid up.”

Asked about efforts to remove dangerous cladding in England four years after Grenfell, Mr Jenrick said 95 per cent of the 469 buildings identified have either had the cladding removed or had workers on site.

About 70 per cent of the properties have seen work completed, while the vast majority should be finished “by the end of the year”, he added.