Cladding safety: homeowners still waiting for safety inspections on their cladding two years on from the Grenfell tragedy

When Rob Leary bought his first home two years ago he was full of hope for the future.

He was on the housing ladder, happy with his girlfriend and living in an exciting, regenerating corner of London.

But Rob and his girlfriend split up at Christmas. They agreed he should stay in their one-bedroom flat in Stratford, built in 2012, and he would buy her out of her share of their investment. To raise the money he approached Santander to remortgage the flat, which had cost £340,000.

“We got to the stage of a surveyor coming round and it all seemed fine, and then I started to get a series of calls saying they needed information on the cladding,” he says.

Rob’s home is in a block covered in ceramic rain screen cladding. These large, decorative tiles reflect the light and their subtle green and purple hues gave the building its name — Aurora.

Unsurprisingly, the technical specification of the cladding material had not come up when Rob bought the flat. “It didn’t even cross our minds,” he says.

But he came to learn that the ceramic panels are one of the many varieties that, while not actively condemned, have also not received the safety all-clear in the fallout from the Grenfell Tower blaze of June 2017 that claimed 72 lives, the rapid spread of the flames blamed in large part on aluminium cladding.

In December the Government updated its safety guidance on cladding materials.

As a result, blocks with cladding need to be inspected to ensure they comply — a job which should be carried out by the managing agent or building owner, in Aurora’s case One Housing Group.

Eight months on this has not been done at Rob’s home, leaving him in limbo.

“As things stand my flat is worth zero,” he says. “I am not the only one. There are people at Aurora who want to sell, and this is holding up people’s lives.

"And obviously there is the safety issue. We do not know if this cladding is combustible or not. There are families in the block, children, old people, young people. It is a big worry.”

Rob is fortunate in that his ex is understanding about being owed a five-figure sum.

“I still love living in Stratford but it is very frustrating,” he explains. “I can’t understand why after eight months the building still has not been checked. The last time I spoke to them they said they were still looking for quotes and that would take them six weeks. None of us knows if this building is safe.”

Contacted by Homes & Property, One Housing apologised to residents and said Aurora will be inspected in September, with results expected around six weeks later.

A spokesman said: “We take the safety of our residents very seriously, and as a responsible landlord, we intend to fully comply with recent advice published by the Government.

“If the inspection should reveal that any remediation is necessary we will investigate all options to ensure that residents are not unreasonably impacted. It is also our intention that our residents will not have to pay for such remediation, if it is required.

“We are sorry to hear some residents have faced difficulty in re-mortgaging and selling their homes. We are aware that lenders and their surveyors are increasingly requesting confirmation statements from building owners as to matters specifically concerning the fire safety of tall buildings. This is unfortunately impacting on many residents, leaseholders and landlords throughout the UK.”

The plight faced by Rob and his neighbours is all too familiar to Rituparna Saha, co-founder of the UK Cladding Action Group.

“This is something we hear a lot. People only find out when they try to sell. Banks are saying they must have proof that buildings are safe, and if there is no fire risk assessment report you are stuck in the flat until it is done and, if necessary, the cladding is changed. The only way you would be able to sell is if you can find a cash buyer who will take it for a fraction of its value.”

Fire safety in tall buildings has become a complex issue since the disaster at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington.

The 24-storey block was clad in aluminium composite material or ACM which is now known to be dangerously combustible. Yet progress in removing ACM from about 433 buildings in the UK — the majority in London — appears slow.

In May, in a written response in Parliament, then-housing minister Kit Malthouse confirmed that some 16,500 flats in privately owned residential towers remained covered in ACM. An estimated 10,600 of these are in the capital.

Councils and housing associations have generally accepted responsibility for making their buildings safe but it is claimed some private developers have been less forthcoming.

The Government has agreed to provide a £200 million fund to cover the costs of removing ACM. But almost simultaneously a whole new can of worms is opening.

In July the Government’s expert panel on fire safety said high pressure laminate, or HPL, cladding panels, often made from compressed wood and paper, could also be unsafe.

According to Sarah Jones, Labour’s shadow housing minister, HPL cladding could be present on up to another 1,700 blocks.

Saha of the UK Cladding Action Group became involved in the issue because her flat at Northpoint in Bromley, south-east London, is clad with both ACM and HPL. Despite active campaigning, she claims it has proved impossible to get any satisfaction from Taylor Wimpey which owned the building between 2001 and 2007, and now says it is not the company’s responsibility.

Current owner Citistead said it sympathised with residents and had paid for expert reports on the cladding in the continued hope that a “viable solution” could be reached.

“However, Citistead had no involvement in the installation of cladding on the building,” added a spokesman.