A West London council has admitted it “knowingly took some risks” when it bought 290 properties for survivors of the Grenfell tragedy, with many now deemed so unsafe they can’t be brought up to a reasonable standard for use as social housing.
Kensington and Chelsea Council said residents were moved on once issues were raised with the properties it purchased in haste after the fire in 2017 displaced a large number of Grenfell residents. Some were never occupied due to safety issues such as unusual layouts or fire escape problems, according to a council report.
The admission comes as the council seeks to sell off 14 of the homes because they’re in such a poor state they can’t be brought up to standard, raising questions about council processes and a waste of taxpayer money when basic surveys could have picked up some of the worst issues.
Emma O’Connor, who escaped in a lift from the 20th floor with her partner, accused the council of failing to learn from its mistakes. She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “They don’t investigate before they do something. Rush is the biggest red flag. You cannot rush fire safety.
“People’s lives mean more than money. If it takes a long time [to find a suitable property] so be it. It’s a human right to live somewhere safe”.
Survivors group Grenfell Next of Kin said the admission was “the tip of the iceberg”. They said: “The decision made by the Tory Government in the immediate aftermath of the fire to leave the same negligent Tory council in charge of the aftermath with a blank cheque, without any oversight or scrutiny, was a grave misstep, harmful for the victims and irresponsible.
“The evidence revealed in the Inquiry paints a picture of a council that operated more like property developers than public servants, engaging in dubious dealings that compromised the safety and wellbeing of the community which created the conditions that led up to the disaster.”
The group is calling on the council to have its books examined by forensic accountants. They added: “We believe that the rest of the iceberg would reveal epic failures in the aftermath of a disaster. And there must be learning around this for any future disaster scenarios in our country.”
Kensington and Chelsea Council said it knowingly took some risks purchasing the properties “in the necessary interest of speed”, a council report shows. They said this meant detailed surveys were not carried out prior to purchase.
The council said it soon became evident some of the properties were unsuitable and would prove difficult to bring up to high safety standards required for social housing. They said the purchases would not have been made had more detailed information been available and had the “necessity of the circumstances” been different.
The report read: “The council has now reached the limit of what it can do with a reasonable level of investment to improve properties to the necessary standards of safety, security and comfort to let them for social rent. Even where it might be possible to undertake works, the assessed scale and cost of those works will never be recovered by rental income.”Therefore, while the council is reluctant to dispose of any home that could be used for social rent, disposal is recommended as the right course of action.”
Other reasons for selling include not wholly owning the freehold, encountering “challenges” with freeholders and leaseholders and realising safety issues “cannot be reasonably fixed”.
The council does not wholly own the freehold for any of 14 vacant properties it wants to sell. The local authority said terms within the leaseholds often stopped or unreasonably obstructed it from carrying out necessary works to bring the properties to a lettable standard. They said this was especially the case for street properties.
In other cases, the complex ownership arrangements of a block made it “extremely difficult” to carry out works. The council has promised to reinvest the proceeds from the sales back into social housing in the borough.
Beth Rudolf, director of delivery at the Conveyancing Association, said though the council should have carried due diligence, it’s possible the faults may not have been picked up at the time. The industry body said this may have been due to the actions of property agents.
She said regulations from 2008 require anyone marketing a property to reveal any faults – known as Material Information – that would impact the average buyer’s decision. She said: “While good estate agents already provide Material Information, had these requirements been properly followed, councils like Kensington and Chelsea might have had the necessary insight into the condition of the properties they were purchasing, especially at such a critical time in the aftermath of Grenfell.
“We know 80per cent of property listings include basic information but only 10pc go further to disclose the details that truly matter to buyers. This lack of compliance puts lives at risk and undermines the trust buyers place in the process or, of course, where it is only discovered after an offer is made, it causes transactions to be delayed and fall through.”
She added: “It’s possible that, even with surveys, some of these issues wouldn’t have been identified at the time. But that only reinforces the urgent need for regulation of property agents and greater enforcement of standards. This is the kind of progress we should be striving for, particularly around building safety improvements, not just in honour of those affected by Grenfell, but to prevent future tragedies.”
Kensington and Chelsea Council received £60,000 per property from the Greater London Authority. This money must be returned to City Hall once the properties have been sold.
Over 290 homes were purchased using council reserves or borrowing against the General Fund as well as GLA grant. A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesperson said: “Purchasing 290 homes in 2017 was an unprecedented challenge and the council knowingly took some risks to complete sales quickly.
“This included conducting only limited surveys and purchasing privately owned properties that we assumed could be made suitable for social housing. It is inevitable that quality will vary when purchasing this many properties at speed, especially as many had been in private ownership.
“We implemented a work programme to bring properties up to the high standard we expect for our residents in social housing. In a few cases properties proved unsuitable and works were not possible due to freehold issues, structural issues or prohibitive costs.
“We assessed properties shortly after purchase and any that we assessed as unsuitable and that we could not bring up to standard have never been occupied. We are now recommending disposal of 14 properties because they cannot be brought up to the high standards we expect for our residents. There is greater benefit to our residents in selling them and reinvesting the proceeds in our social housing.”
