Homeowners can’t sell flats as fire safety experts don’t agree if they’re covered in flammable cladding

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

Apartment block residents won’t be able to sell their flats for as long as three years because conflicting fire safety experts can’t agree if it’s covered in flammable cladding or not.

Homeowners with flats in Union Park, East Greenwich, are struggling to put their homes on the market as different fire safety assessors have disagreed on whether the cladding in their building is safe.

Dr Lisa Smith, 42, moved into Union Park in 2013 while she was pregnant with her first child. The complex’s structure is lined with thick wooden panels on the outside.

She said the building received a fire safety risk assessment from MAF Associates in January 2020, which stated remedial work was needed on the structure’s lower balconies.

The B2 rating given meant the work was required to bring the building up to acceptable fire safety standards, making it difficult for homeowners to sell their properties if they wished to move before then.

Dr Smith said: “Our managing agent had some kind of an issue with the result of that first fire assessment report.

“It’s still unclear as to why that was, but our management agency, London Residential Management, decided to discount that first assessment and appoint a new fire assessing company to carry out further assessment.”

Leaseholders living in buildings over 11 metres tall can avail of the Government’s Building Safety Fund, set up following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, to compensate for works required to replace cladding in their building.

But as a portion of Union Park is under 11 metres, Dr Smith and other leaseholders were not able to have the costs of remediating their building compensated.

She said the cost per flat of updating the building’s balconies, as suggested in MAF Associate’s report, was up to £7,000, but that this sum significantly rose when her managing agent appointed Trifire as the surveyors for a further assessment.

Dr Smith said: “They came back with the conclusion that all of the cladding needed to be taken off and replaced completely. So obviously, at that point, the cost to the leaseholders was going to be enormous, like one of those tens of thousands of pounds situations.

“If you were to look at the two reports, they’re like chalk and cheese. It’s just a complete mess. This is a scandal in itself, that there’s just such variability in the conclusions that the various different fire assessors are coming to.”

Fran Dean, 59, bought her flat in Union Park in 2013. Like Dr Smith, Ms Dean said she has never been concerned about the wooden cladding on her building.

Ms Dean said: “Nobody here is worried about burning in their bed. Nobody even thought this issue would be relevant to us, honestly… It just doesn’t seem proportionate to suddenly tell us we need to spend thousands per flat to change something that has never, to us, been dangerous.”

The resident said she never planned to stay in London. However, she said the halt in work progressing to allow the building to achieve a higher fire safety rating has left her trapped, despite her plans to retire in the next five years.

LRM, MAF Associates and Trifire were approached for comment, but had not responded at the time of publication.

Pictured top: Fran Dean, 59, bought her flat in Union Park in 2019 (Picture: Facundo Arrizabalaga)