Flat-owner says constructing work by freeholder has left her homeless | EUROtoday

A 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 house uninhabitable.

A botched roof extension induced 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’s been devastating, it’s completely ruined our lives,” she says.

Kate is one in all greater than 1,000 leaseholders who’ve contacted the BBC prior to now 12 months about disputes and issues involving the leasehold system.

Another flat on the highest ground was additionally broken by the works. The homeowners, Laura and Tom, nonetheless reside within the block, though they do not know how protected it’s.

They have a small baby, George, and say they hate the actual fact their “happy smiley baby” has to reside there.

Work was stopped by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after numerous security breaches. The constructing stays unfinished and the encompassing land is suffering from particles.

Kate, Laura, Tom and one other leaseholder have tried to pursue the matter within the courts, however to this point, they are saying they’ve had little to indicate for his or her efforts.

Earlier this 12 months, the leaseholders have been even ordered to pay £7,000 authorized prices to the businessman they blamed for the works.

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 by, 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 present roof – in different phrases, instantly above the flats owned by Kate, Laura and Tom.

As the regulation at present stands, the freeholder of a property typically owns the constructing and the land beneath it, outright and endlessly. Leaseholders successfully purchase the precise to reside within the property for a hard and fast time frame.

The system has its origins within the Middle Ages, when wealthy landowners granted tenants the precise to work an space of land.

Kate advised us she wrote again to the brand new freeholder, Magnitude Developments Ltd, and its proprietor Ameen Raza, asking for readability in regards to 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: “Every time they were on site, something happened.”

Workers have been “throwing things off the roof” and placing the residents in danger, she provides. “I woke up one morning, they dropped something on our bedroom ceiling, and a piece of our ceiling fell down.”

Holes began to seem in Kate’s ceiling too. A short lived cowl was put in place, however by summer time 2022, this had begun to leak.

Kate feared her house was going to break down and warned the freeholder.

“It was raining inside the building at that point,” she says.

In August 2022, her ceiling fell in.

“My furniture, TV, sentimental belongings, photos and books were just absolutely destroyed,” she says.

Kate says her house insurance coverage firm would not pay out as a result of the property had not been watertight.

Legal paperwork recommend that, as a “goodwill gesture”, Magnitude supplied to restore the injury if all claims in opposition to it have been waived – a proposal it stated the leaseholders had “unreasonably” refused.

However, 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.

After the injury, a lot of the block’s residents needed to transfer out.

Magnitude later claimed in court docket that it had supplied different lodging whereas works continued, however the supply had not been taken up. Kate and Laura advised us they dispute this.

Kate says she was pressured to sleep on the ground at her dad and mom’ home. Tom and Laura moved in with mates in Coventry, 100 miles from Laura’s administrative center and the couple’s house.

“My mental health plummeted,” Laura says. “It was awful… it had such an impact that I just wasn’t quite prepared for.”

During that interval, Laura grew to become pregnant. She and Tom determined to return to their very own flat regardless that works have been nonetheless ongoing.

“We had a brand-new baby with bad lungs, and we wake up to a generator running above our heads and the absolutely stinking of petrol,” says Laura.

Work on the block was halted by an HSE “prohibition notice” in March 2024.

There is a tribunal court docket system for leaseholder disputes, however the case introduced by Kate, Laura and one other leaseholder was heard in a civil court docket.

When the case began in April this 12 months, the choose 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 method improper.

Court 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 befell.

Magnitude was not represented in court docket, and the choose ordered it to pay greater than £100,000 in damages to the leaseholders.

Since the corporate 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 important monetary management.

A second choose in a later listening to accepted there have been “serious concerns” within the case, however he denied the appliance to make Mr Raza personally liable.

Since the leaseholders’ software had failed, he ordered them to pay Mr Raza’s authorized charges, amounting to £7,000.

Land Registry paperwork present that, by the point of the court docket case, Magnitude had already bought the constructing’s freehold for £300,000.

It was purchased in May 2024 by an organization known as Imperial Prime Properties Ltd, which had been in enterprise since January that 12 months.

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.

“Anybody can buy a freehold,” says Katie Kendrick, founding father of the National Leasehold Campaign, a bunch campaigning for adjustments to the regulation. “They are often sold 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 utterly “powerless” and pissed off that particular person administrators or shareholders of freehold firms are usually not liable.

Tom says he feels the system has labored in favour of the previous freehold firm and Mr Raza personally. “He’s hiding behind that corporate veil,” he says.

Katie Kendrick believes “leaseholders cannot defend themselves in the same way that rich, deep-pocketed freeholders can”.

The BBC has discovered virtually £6.5m price of property registered to Mr Raza’s household. Almost £4m price was bought in 2023 and 2024 to firms of which Ameen Raza was a director.

Public data additionally present Mr Raza’s firms have earned a minimum of £90,000 prior to now 5 years from a neighborhood authority. His corporations have offered lodging to folks topic to immigration management with no recourse to public funds, in addition to numerous different social providers.

Meanwhile, the leaseholders really feel there isn’t a safety for folks like them.

“There’s no-one. We’re completely on our own,” Kate says.

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (Lafra), which goals to “strengthen” leaseholder rights in England and Wales, was fast-tracked by Parliament earlier than the 2024 General Election however most of its measures have not but come into drive.

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 running sore” for years, and the federal government wished to get rid of it inside the time period of this parliament. He added that bulletins on additional laws have been prone to be revealed earlier than the tip of 2025.

Kate and her son proceed to reside together with her dad and mom. She and the opposite leaseholders are nonetheless in litigation with the businesses.

She says she is “incredibly angry and frustrated” that somebody can “completely destroy someone’s home and walk away”.

We contacted Magnitude, Imperial Prime Properties Ltd and – through his barrister – Ameen Raza. All declined to remark.

The leaseholders’ native authority, Spelthorne Borough Council, advised the BBC it has eliminated the pigeons and carried out “pest-proofing” within the block, and stated it could attempt to reclaim the fee from the freeholder.

However, the constructing remains to be incomplete, with gaps the place home windows must be, and the leaseholders are involved the pigeons will return.

Only three out of the six flats within the block are actually occupied. None 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 assume is “derelict”.

“We try and make the insides nice and liveable and colourful and exciting, but everything else is awful,” says Laura.

“This is not what I want for my baby.”