Labour MP for Battersea Marsha De Cordova is championing the cause of leaseholders facing bills of thousands of pounds at Sesame apartments.
She told the Commons yesterday:
“Leaseholders are still being left in limbo about whether they will be footing the bill.
“But it is not leaseholders who have failed to upgrade buildings or cut corners with safety regulations.
“The burden should not fall on them.
“The government says it would be morally wrong for leaseholders to be held liable for the costs, but these must not be empty words.
“It has the power and it has the duty to intervene.”
The Guardian reports that Will Astor’s Long Harbour fund will be demanding £8,000 each for new fire alarms and fire marshals. But the total bill to replace the cladding will be £2.2 million.
The freeholder is unknown, but may be one of the Adriatic Land companies, whose directors are nominees of the Sanne Group, which is headquartered in Jersey.
Mr Astor’s spokesman is reported to claim that the freehold is owned by a pension fund.
LKP believes there is significant private equity in the Long Harbour fund and that these assets are often held offshore.
The same brand of cladding was used at a complex including 1,000 flats at New Capital Quay, Greenwich, where one resident was told by a surveyor that her £475,000 flat had been slashed in value to £50,000.
Several of the residents own only a fraction of their flats under a shared ownership scheme, but have told de Cordova that they have been informed they will be liable for 100% of the remedial costs.
One said: “I am facing being trapped in an unsaleable property for which I’ll likely have to pay service charges that I cannot afford. I thought I was doing everything right when I saved up in my 20s to buy a home, and now my future looks dire.”
Leaseholders of flats face £40,000 bills over Grenfell type cladding
Residents of 80 flats managed by a company owned by David Cameron’s half brother-in-law are each facing bills of up to £40,000 because the building is clad with flammable panels similar to those used on Grenfell Tower, in London.
Related posts:
‘Gargantuan’ Grenfell cladding bills from Astor and Tchenguiz on sites such as New Festival Quarter, The Times reveals today
John Healey says it’s ‘wrong’ for leaseholders to have to pay to remove Grenfell cladding
20,000 leaseholders trapped in blocks with Grenfell cladding, says Telegraph
Will Heysmoor Heights leaseholders lose their homes to anonymous offshore freeholder if they cannot pay Grenfell bills?
Government to ask Will Astor: who is the offshore freeholder at Heysmoor Heights (where ordinary families face £18k Grenfell cladding bills)?
Barratt pays out to remove Grenfell cladding at Citiscape
The UK Government should stop playing around and let the Housing Minister to show leadership by putting the Long Harbour Fund , Sanne and Proxima GR and all those Developers which supplied combustible buildings into liquidation for failing :
1. to accept responsibility to replace the combustible insulation on buildings and deliberately delaying repair work to avoid shouldering the repair costs and causing danger to the lives of people who live in the building .
2. to protect public safety. and for causing economic damage to the leaseholders who were supplied leases for defectively constructed freehold property.
The National Daily Newspapers should be calling for Government to take this action .