The cladding conundrum

Over the last year or so as far as the property industry is concerned apart from the stamp duty holiday one of the other topics that has generated a lot of column inches in the press has been the cladding issue. It is a sensitive topic of course because of the Grenfell Tower tragedy which happened nearly 4 years ago. The Inquiry that took place in the aftermath in 2019 concluded that the tower block’s cladding was the “primary cause” of the rapid spread of the fire that was responsible for killing 72 people in the summer of 2017.

What is cladding?
Cladding is a material which is wrapped around the outside of a building to improve appearance and insulate and waterproof buildings. They are often blue or green panels, and in the Grenfell Tower example, they were fitted only weeks before the fire struck as part of a general £9m renovation of the block.

Why has cladding become such an ongoing issue?
The government has identified as many as 462 high-rise tower blocks up and down the country that have similar cladding to that of Grenfell. This cladding is made of materials which are said to be chemically similar to paraffin and therefore highly flammable and easy to melt. Surprisingly, as of January 2021, still nearly a third of the 462 blocks have yet to be fully made safe nearly 4 years after Grenfell.

However not only are tower blocks affected by the cladding issue, there are also many other types of residential buildings that are clad in hazardous materials. The Labour party recently estimated that even up to 4 million properties or 11 million residents could be affected including nearly every owner of a recently constructed purpose-built flat. Cladding has also been found in up to 30 NHS trust buildings.

What impact does it have on leaseholders?
Apart from the obvious safety concerns that this causes, leaseholders are being pursued for the cost of remedial measures to make the buildings safe. The original developers are not picking up the cost and so it’s the freeholders of the affected properties who are passing on the cost to the leaseholders which seems really unfortunate

Many, many homeowners are now effectively trapped in flats they cannot sell or remortage until they get proof that the building is safe.

I myself used to live in a block of flats in Hackney built in 2008 and I’ve heard that the issue is preventing owners selling so they are currently unable to move. I can consider my very fortunate to have been able to sell up back in 2016 before cladding became a national issue.

What is being done about it?
There is some help to aid leaseholders who are stuck in this predicament. The government so far has allocated over £5bn to help fund the removal of unsafe cladding but this will not be enough to cover everyone affected. Some experts estimate that the true cost will be closer to £50bn than £5bn. In some cases owners of newly bought flats are being told that they face huge bills despite receiving assurances that materials on their blocks were safe before making the purchase.

Clearly, this issue is not going to disappear anytime soon in what is already a tough time for many households with the economic downturn and the pandemic.