Grenfell Tower inquiry: key things we’ve learned this year
I don’t want to distract from the tragedy itself but, even after all this, more people will continue to suffer due to the subsequent cladding scandal.<p>The UK government are trying to pass the costs of remediation for other cladded buildings on to leaseholders who didn’t have any involvement in the design, build or sign-off of their buildings.<p>Some people are already being bankrupted through extortionate waking watches, mitigation and remediation bills and I’ve even heard that one person in my city (Leeds) has killed themselves due to the stress.<p>According to the select committee reviewing the Building Safety Bill, “the only people who believe leaseholders should pay are the government”.<p>The House of Lords has proposed an amendment to the bill stating that leaseholders won’t be made to pay (note: not forcing the tax payer to pay, just ensuring the leaseholders don’t) and the Housing Committee (namely MP Robert Jenrick) are rejecting this on the basis that the tax payer shouldn’t foot the bill.<p>We’re talking sums amounting to up to £100k being charged to people who paid similar amounts for their apartments in the first place! One affected block was built <i>since</i> Grenfell, so the entire ownership could effectively be in massive negative equity.<p>The government have put together a fund of £1bn for non-ACM cladding remediation, expecting that to cover ~600 buildings, but already over 2,700 buildings have applied and the estimated cost UK-wide is upwards of £15bn.<p>The whole thing is an utter shambles and people are stuck unable to sell their properties (stalling the first time buyer market as they can’t move up to other properties, and meaning they cannot move for work in a time when there are masses of redundancies) or even remortgage!