Flat owners in Ipswich building hit by the cladding crisis face losing money in buy back offer
The building is currently unfit to live in because of chronic safety issues.
Last updated 15th Nov 2023
People in a building hit by the cladding crisis in Ipswich could have tens of thousands of pounds taken off of offers to buy back their flats - due to costs.
Owners of properties at Cardinal Lofts received offers to sell them off earlier this year - the building is currently unfit to live in because of chronic safety issues - however its now emerged they'll have costs deducted from those offers.
People living on the top three floors of the tower block were told to leave their properties last November, with the rest of the apartments being evacuated earlier this year.
Suffolk Fire and Rescue has issued a prohibition order covering the building, preventing people living there.
Since then residents and leaseholders have faced months of uncertainty over the future of their properties, which could not be sold on - until Grey Gr's offers, which are thought to be far below what the homes were originally bought for.
Chu Mann is from the cladding action group the Ipswich Cladiators, and tells us there hasn't been any transparency throughout this whole process: "You're putting trust in a system where there is no trust.
"It feels like on the surface, the residents have a means of escape from the whole situation, but it comes with caveats."
Chu explains people were already facing making a loss, but now, with these additional costs, the outlook's much worse: "It's going to ruin your credit record, you could end up bankrupt... it'll bring more people into that risk bracket.
"Unless the government steps in, the freeholder can do what they're doing at the moment...
"They're not treating it like your home because there's no emotional investment in it on their part, it's purely a business"
"Time and time again throughout this, the homeowners are left to pay for a mistake they didn't make.
"They've done nothing wrong throughout all of this. They didn't build the place. Why are they getting penalised?"
What does Grey GR say?
“Grey GR have provided an offer to each leaseholder to buy back their lease based on market valuations from three independent and reputable surveyors, and in the interests of transparency these reports have been shared with leaseholders. The valuations assume no building safety issues are present. Given due consideration to our fiduciary duties and the disproportionate costs of any remediation options, we are confident that this is the best outcome possible.
“Almost half of leaseholders have now accepted their offers. We continue to work with leaseholders on the buy-back process and are required to gather leaseholder deed certificates to help us establish the status of individuals in respect of their leaseholder protection under the Building Safety Act 2022. We have not issued any communications regarding service charges related to building safety costs.”