News

Insurance

As previously highlighted by James Andrew Residential (JAR) last summer, unfortunately our insurers require upfront payment of our premiums rather than being able to pay our premiums in installments. Last year, this resulted in the acceleration of half of our premiums and therefore a separate invoice requiring payment for half of the insurance premiums was issued prior to the usual half yearly service charge invoices. This year however that invoice has been issued for the full amount of premiums.

We appreciate the size of the invoice and request for immediate payment makes this impractical for many leaseholders and will be talking to the freeholder and JAR on Monday about options to reduce the impact on leaseholders, however unfortunately the increased premiums will remain a reality until the cladding works are resolved.

Meetings with Taylor Wimpey

There have been meetings between the freeholder and Taylor Wimpey to see if headway could be made on solving the two issues still outstanding, firstly, who will take responsibility for overall project management and overruns, and secondly, will Taylor Wimpey agree to the remediation works required in the car park to remove the Expanded polystyrene (EPS) render which the building safety fund had originally agreed to have removed.

There remain a number of open points between the freeholder, JAR and Taylor Wimpey on how the project should be managed and who will be responsible for cost overruns. Taylor Wimpey have made an updated offer this week on how these can be closed, and it is now with the freeholder, JAR and the various legal teams to see if these sufficiently reduce the risk to the development of the project should overruns arise.

With respect to the responsibility for the removal of the EPS render, unfortunately this remains unresolved with a disagreement between Taylor Wimpey and our own fire engineer's as to the risk posed. However, a dispute resolution process was discussed with involvement of an independent third party fire engineer and if need be the fire engineers industry body, and all parties are in agreement that that this process shouldn't hold up the main works on the removal of the cladding.

There are further meetings happening next week in which we hope to have a clearer understanding regarding when the cladding project may be able to commence.

Meeting with Emily Thornberry

Simon, Nick and John from the V7RLA and Antony Spencer had a productive meeting with Emily Thornberry and her SPAD Frances Simmons (any of you who have e-mailed Emily on this topic will likely have had a response from Frances). We were able to explain to Emily in detail the current situation and the significant consequences that this has had and is continuing to have on residents and leaseholders in the development.

We requested that Emily write to both Michael Gove and Taylor Wimpey on this topic, as well as suggesting that she raise a parliamentary question on this topic to help try and bring a resolution to the disagreement over the removal of the EPS render in the car park. She understood the predicament that we were in with and seemed willing to work with ourselves and Antony over the coming weeks to try and apply some pressure on Taylor Wimpey to agree to the scope of works that the Building Safety Fund had originally agreed to.

Subsequent to the meeting she has written to Michael Gove with specifics of our building and asking for an update on how we can proceed. We are happy to share a copy of this letter with residents who request it, and will update you as soon as we get any further response from Emily Thornberry.

The V7RLA Committee