South London leaseholders can’t sell their homes because of a council’s delays in issuing fire safety certificates that prospective buyers require to get a mortgage from the bank.
Victoria Gatenby, 47, who owns a flat in Wrayburn House in Bermondsey has been trying to get one of the certificates, called EWS1 forms, from her freeholder Southwark Council since 2021.
Victoria and her husband found a buyer for their flat in the tower block back in 2022. But the sale fell through after the individual pulled out because banks refused to lend to them without seeing an EWS1 form for the building.
The anonymous leaseholder said communication with Southwark Council was ‘extremely difficult’. CREDIT: Facundo Arrizabalaga
Three years later, Ms Gatenby has now left London for work reasons and is renting near Reading, Berkshire. But without an EWS1 form, the mum-of-two is no closer to finding a buyer for the flat—and her family are unable to buy a new property in their new home town without first selling the Bermondsey flat.
She said: “I don’t know how long I thought it would take, but I certainly didn’t think it would take four years. They [Southwark] say the building is safe but how do we know if we can’t get an EWS1?
“We’ve got two kids. We really just want to be able to buy our own home. We don’t want to be renting. But all our money is tied up in this flat and we need to be able to sell it to buy somewhere else.”
After countless emails and phone calls to council officials over the last four years, Ms Gatenby said she was losing faith that she was ever going to get an EWS1 form from the Labour-run local authority. Without one of the certificates, her solicitor has advised her that her only solution may be to sell the flat to a cash buyer for up to 30 per cent less than the property is worth.
EWS1 forms were introduced in 2018 in the wake of new fire safety regulations brought in following the Grenfell Tower fire. They serve as evidence that a building with potentially combustible cladding has had a fire safety assessment.
At the end of 2022 six of the UK’s biggest banks updated their policies to say they would offer mortgages on properties in tall blocks where there were fire safety issues, provided there was a funded remediation plan in place.
But each bank’s specific policy on the topic differs and Ms Gatenby is unaware of any leaseholders in Wrayburn House who have found a buyer who has been able to convince a lender to approve a mortgage without an EWS1 form.
Cllr Rachel Bentley, deputy leader of Southwark Council\s Liberal Democrat opposition said the delay in issuing EWS1 forms was a ‘scandal’
Another leaseholder in the block, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from council officials, said two potential buyers for her property pulled out because they couldn’t find a bank to lend without an EWS1 form.
She said: “I am desperate to sell because of my personal financial circumstances. But I’m being prevented from doing it. I’m a bona fide leaseholder. I’ve done everything in my power to do what I should do.
“I keep emailing Southwark for answers and I get no reply. Communication is extremely difficult. I feel very let down.”
Ms Gatenby meanwhile has escalated a complaint she has made against the council over the handling of her case after she claims Southwark responded to her formal grievance with a copy and paste response she had previously received from officials in an email in 2022.
Local Liberal Democrat councillor Rachel Bentley said: “The delay in getting EWS1 forms is yet another housing scandal from this disastrous Labour council. People are fed up with this incompetence, and the council needs to stop passing the buck and take responsibility.”
Cllr Sarah King, Southwark’s cabinet member for council homes, said: “We are working through the EWS1 requests while we move towards new, comprehensive government and RICS [Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors] legislation on building safety, which does not require an EWS1.”