Flat owners call their homes a ‘property prison’ in £5m fraud claim

Lawyers have been appointed to represent more than 40 flat owners in a multi-million pound fraud claim in the High Court after an alleged failure to identify extensive defects and fire risks during the construction of their block in Swansea.

Milners solicitors, headquartered in Leeds, is now warning that there is likely to be significant numbers of leaseholders trapped in a “property prison” in similar buildings across the UK, with their homes also now unsellable.

Acting on behalf of 44 leaseholders, living in 32 apartments, Milners has filed a fraud claim against Zurich Insurance in the High Court.
The group action is accusing the firm of issuing 10-year home warranties despite not inspecting their properties – and seeking a compensation award potentially in excess of £5m.

At the centre of the legal dispute is the high-rise Aurora apartment block on Swansea seafront – built by York-based Persimmon Homes almost 20 years ago – where the purchase of their dream flat quickly turned into a nightmare for its residents.

Milners’ solicitor Martin Scott, who specialises in complex High Court construction and engineering disputes, said the safety of high-rise apartment blocks was still in sharp focus following the Grenfell Tower fire disaster.

He said “Sadly, we know that Aurora residents are not alone in having to live in such financially-devastating circumstances – which one client described to me as like ‘having a noose around her neck’.

“There are leaseholders in many other parts of the country who are enduring a similar story with structurally defective flats not being adequately inspected, and now being forced to turn to the courts for financial redress.

He said: “The reality is, if you’re an owner-occupier of one of these apartments, like the 44 clients we represent, you’re living in a mortgage cage or a property prison which you can’t get out of.

“You can’t re-mortgage because nobody will touch you where there are fire issues, you can’t sell because there’s no market.

“There might be a very limited market for cash buyers prepared to take the risk. And the truth is a property purchase is the biggest purchase any ordinary person will make in their lives so if that goes wrong then their life goes wrong.

“So you’ve got to find a fix or you have to be able to recover compensation for them to be able to move on.”

Residents at the Aurora development claim Zurich surveyors bypassed their own electronic inspection system to issue handwritten cover notes as proof of their insurance policy.

They said if they had realised their cover notes were issued in this way and without final inspections, they would not have completed the purchase of their apartments.

They claim that as well as problems with water ingress, fire doors and fire breaks between apartments were inadequate.