Residents of Obel Tower in Belfast city center have been told it is difficult to insure the building due to repairs needed behind the building’s cladding. Lisa-Marie Saygiver, who owns an apartment in the building, says the bill has left her and many other residents “terrified” and feel they shouldn’t have to pay for flaws in the structure of the building, which they had not been. advised before buying their home.
She told Belfast Live: “A lot of us who live here don’t know how we’re going to be able to pay such a large bill in the short term.
“To be told that I have to pay nearly £6,000 next month to fix issues with the building that we didn’t contribute to or were unaware of. These issues should have been resolved before our apartments were sold to us and it doesn’t seem fair to me that we are now being charged so much.
“There are families with young children living here, you just won’t be able to afford such a high bill and people have cried thinking about how we are going to cover the costs.
“Some feel they are at serious risk of losing their homes altogether as they will struggle to pay their mortgages on top of these additional costs.
“Many of us feel we are under pressure to pay for these repairs and have little confidence that we will recover them in the future. It is not acceptable that we have been put in this position.”
Property managers Lisney told residents and confirmed to Belfast Live that he had asked the building contractors to pay for the repairs but told them they had no legal obligation to do so as their contract was with previous ownership. management company, Donegall Quay Property Management, which is now in liquidation.
For this reason, he is now asking the owners to pay the cost of repairing the defects and said legal action against the contractors is planned in order to recover the costs.
If successful, the money would then be returned to the owners.
However, he warned that the legal action could be lengthy and it could take years for the money to be recovered.
He also said that if satisfactory progress on repairs had not been made, the building could not be insured, with insurance companies finding the buildings difficult to acquire Form EWS1, the magnitude of the risk (62 million pounds in reinstatement costs), the height of the building and the location of the flood zone making it “unappetizing for the insurance market”.
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Source: www.express.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-05-03 10:07:00
