Flat-owner says building work by freeholder has left her homeless

Tarah Welsh,Housing correspondentandJade Thompson,BBC Information”Rain was coming via my mild fittings”: Watch Kate’s footage of the harm that made her flat uninhabitableA mom and her teenage son are going through a fourth Christmas of homelessness after constructing contractors, working for the freeholder at their block of flats, left their residence uninhabitable.A botched roof extension prompted the ceiling to break down at Kate Morris’s top-floor flat in Ashford, Surrey. A pigeon infestation adopted, leaving each room lined in fowl droppings.”It has been devastating, it is fully ruined our lives,” she says.Kate is one in all greater than 1,000 leaseholders who’ve contacted the BBC previously yr about disputes and issues involving the leasehold system.One other flat on the highest ground was additionally broken by the works. The house owners, Laura and Tom, nonetheless stay within the block, though they don’t know how protected it’s.They’ve a small little one, George, and say they hate the actual fact their “blissful smiley child” has to stay there.Work was stopped by the Well being and Security Government (HSE) after plenty of security breaches. The constructing stays unfinished and the encircling land is plagued by particles.Kate, Laura, Tom and one other leaseholder have tried to pursue the matter within the courts, however thus far, they are saying they’ve had little to point out for his or her efforts.Earlier this yr, the leaseholders have been even ordered to pay £7,000 authorized prices to the businessman they blamed for the works.’Raining inside’In 2021, Kate had been about to promote her two-bedroom flat. It was one in all six properties in a two-storey block.Weeks earlier than the sale went via, she obtained what she describes as a “forthright” letter to say the constructing’s freehold had been bought, with planning permission to construct two extra flats on the prevailing roof – in different phrases, instantly above the flats owned by Kate, Laura and Tom.Because the regulation at the moment stands, the freeholder of a property typically owns the constructing and the land beneath it, outright and without end. Leaseholders successfully purchase the proper to stay within the property for a set time frame.The system has its origins within the Center Ages, when wealthy landowners granted tenants the proper to work an space of land.Kate informed us she wrote again to the brand new freeholder, Magnitude Developments Ltd, and its proprietor Ameen Raza, asking for readability concerning the proposed works. She didn’t get any solutions, she says, and her purchaser consequently pulled out of the sale.Work on the roof extension started in spring 2022. There have been issues with the contractors from the beginning, says Laura: “Each time they have been on web site, one thing occurred.”Laura (pictured together with her husband Tom and their son, George) says she was nervous about the usual of labor Employees have been “throwing issues off the roof” and placing the residents in danger, she provides. “I awoke one morning, they dropped one thing on our bed room ceiling, and a chunk of our ceiling fell down.”Holes began to look in Kate’s ceiling too. A brief cowl was put in place, however by summer season 2022, this had begun to leak.Kate feared her residence was going to break down and warned the freeholder.”It was raining contained in the constructing at that time,” she says.In August 2022, her ceiling fell in.”My furnishings, TV, sentimental belongings, images and books have been simply completely destroyed,” she says.”It has been devastating”: The constructing works left Kate’s flat severely damagedKate says her residence insurance coverage firm would not pay out as a result of the property had not been watertight.Authorized paperwork recommend that, as a “goodwill gesture”, Magnitude provided to restore the harm if all claims in opposition to it have been waived – a proposal it stated the leaseholders had “unreasonably” refused.Nonetheless, the leaseholders say they turned the supply down as a result of the constructing work would have been carried out by the identical contractors, with out proof of guarantee or insurance coverage.Security breachesAfter the harm, many of the block’s residents needed to transfer out.Magnitude later claimed in courtroom that it had provided different lodging whereas works continued, however the supply had not been taken up. Kate and Laura informed us they dispute this.Kate says she was compelled to sleep on the ground at her mother and father’ home. Tom and Laura moved in with mates in Coventry, 100 miles from Laura’s place of job and the couple’s residence.”My psychological well being plummeted,” Laura says. “It was terrible… it had such an influence that I simply wasn’t fairly ready for.”By January 2023, the highest of the block of flats was with out a correct roofDuring that interval, Laura turned pregnant. She and Tom determined to return to their very own flat though works have been nonetheless ongoing.”We had a brand-new child with dangerous lungs, and we get up to a generator working above our heads and the completely stinking of petrol,” says Laura.Work on the block was halted by an HSE “prohibition discover” in March 2024.In liquidationThere is a tribunal courtroom system for leaseholder disputes, however the case introduced by Kate, Laura and one other leaseholder was heard in a civil courtroom.When the case began in April this yr, the decide stated he had obtained a letter informing him that the freeholder, Magnitude Developments Ltd, had commenced liquidation proceedings.There isn’t any suggestion that the insolvency course of was in any means improper.Courtroom paperwork submitted earlier than the listening to point out that Magnitude sought to hitch its contractors to the authorized motion, alleging that they’d did not correctly defend the construction from the weather whereas the works came about.Magnitude was not represented in courtroom, and the decide ordered it to pay greater than £100,000 in damages to the leaseholders.Because the firm was in liquidation, the leaseholders tried to hitch Ameen Raza, its former director, to their authorized grievance. Their barrister argued that though Magnitude was the authorized freeholder, Mr Raza had exercised vital monetary management.A second decide in a later listening to accepted there have been “critical issues” within the case, however he denied the appliance to make Mr Raza personally liable.Because the leaseholders’ software had failed, he ordered them to pay Mr Raza’s authorized charges, amounting to £7,000.’Anybody should buy a freehold’Land Registry paperwork present that, by the point of the courtroom case, Magnitude had already bought the constructing’s freehold for £300,000.It was purchased in Might 2024 by an organization known as Imperial Prime Properties Ltd, which had been in enterprise since January that yr.Imperial Prime Properties Ltd was registered to a digital workplace in central London. The BBC has not been capable of finding an internet site or telephone quantity, and the corporate declined to remark in writing.”Anyone should buy a freehold,” says Katie Kendrick, founding father of the Nationwide Leasehold Marketing campaign, a gaggle campaigning for adjustments to the regulation. “They’re typically bought at auctions.”The system wants overhauling, she believes, as a result of it’s too simple for freeholders to keep away from being held to account if issues come up.The leaseholders say they really feel fully “powerless” and pissed off that particular person administrators or shareholders of freehold corporations should not liable. Tom says he feels the system has labored in favour of the previous freehold firm and Mr Raza personally. “He is hiding behind that company veil,” he says.Katie Kendrick believes “leaseholders can’t defend themselves in the identical means that wealthy, deep-pocketed freeholders can”.The BBC has discovered nearly £6.5m price of property registered to Mr Raza’s household. Virtually £4m price was bought in 2023 and 2024 to corporations of which Ameen Raza was a director.Public data additionally present Mr Raza’s corporations have earned a minimum of £90,000 previously 5 years from an area authority. His corporations have supplied lodging to individuals topic to immigration management with no recourse to public funds, in addition to plenty of different social companies.In the meantime, the leaseholders really feel there isn’t any safety for individuals like them.”There isn’t any-one. We’re fully on our personal,” Kate says.The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (Lafra), which goals to “strengthen” leaseholder rights in England and Wales, was fast-tracked via Parliament earlier than the 2024 Common Election however most of its measures have not but come into power.We requested Housing Secretary Steve Reed when reforms would begin defending leaseholders like Kate, Laura and Tom.He stated he recognised that leasehold had been “a working sore” for years, and the federal government wished to remove it inside the time period of this parliament. He added that bulletins on additional laws have been prone to be printed earlier than the tip of 2025. ‘Offended and pissed off’Kate and her son proceed to stay together with her mother and father. She and the opposite leaseholders are nonetheless in litigation with the businesses.She says she is “extremely indignant and pissed off” that somebody can “fully destroy somebody’s residence and stroll away”.We contacted Magnitude, Imperial Prime Properties Ltd and – by way of his barrister – Ameen Raza. All declined to remark.The leaseholders’ native authority, Spelthorne Borough Council, informed the BBC it has eliminated the pigeons and carried out “pest-proofing” within the block, and stated it might attempt to reclaim the associated fee from the freeholder.Nonetheless, the constructing remains to be incomplete, with gaps the place home windows ought to be, and the leaseholders are involved the pigeons will return.Solely three out of the six flats within the block are actually occupied. Not one of the leaseholders can promote their properties. Laura and Tom stay, however say they really feel trapped, and hate having to boost their son in a constructing that most individuals suppose is “derelict”.”We attempt to make the insides good and habitable and vibrant and thrilling, however every part else is terrible,” says Laura.”This isn’t what I would like for my child.”