When the 24-floor Grenfell Tower apartment building in the affluent West London neighborhood of North Kensington was engulfed in flames with the loss of 72 lives in June 2017, millions of shocked Britons were united in their disbelief that such a thing could happen on their doorstep, and in their certainty that it would never happen again.
UK left with astronomical bills after Grenfell fire chinadaily.com.cn - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chinadaily.com.cn Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Politicians and campaigners angrily rejected long-awaited Government plans to end the cladding scandal yesterday as a betrayal of innocent leaseholders.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick pledged a further £3.5billion to help end the safety crisis following the 72 deaths in the Grenfell disaster.
More than a million leaseholders face bills of up to £115,000 to fix unsafe homes. Mr Jenrick told the Commons that those in blocks over 18 metres (60ft) high would no longer have to pay to replace flammable cladding. But MPs and leaseholders reacted with fury at the news that loans costing up to £600 a year will be forced on hundreds of thousands of homeowners in low and medium rise blocks – potentially blighting resale values.
There will be particular provision to protect shared ownership leaseholders, he added.
The plan follows an investigation into the 2017 Grenfell fire that killed 72 people as a result of flammable cladding.
Thangam Debbonaire, shadow housing secretary, said: The Government has betrayed their promise that leaseholders wouldn’t pay for the building safety crisis.
In Parliament, Mr Jenrick said: No doubt there will be leaseholders watching today that would like us to go even further. [But] English property laws are based on cavaet emptor – buyer beware.
According to the New Build Database, a record of homeowner issues, as many as 4.6 million homeowners are trapped by lender requirements for external wall safety forms. Without an EWS1, lenders are valuing flats at zero, but many homeowners face huge delays getting the forms completed. This is having a big effect on the property market, with potentially millions of flats unable to be sold.
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With Daniel Lippman and Steven Overly
IRANIAN SCHOLAR CHARGED WITH VIOLATING FARA: The Justice Department announced today it has arrested an Iranian political scientist and scholar for acting as an unregistered agent of the Islamic Republic. According to a complaint unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn,