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Grenfell leaseholders concerned council valuations for their flats are not enough
Leaseholders who survived the Grenfell Tower disaster have warned they will be unable to afford to buy a new home in Kensington and Chelsea after the council started valuations of their homes at just £350,000.
Kensington and Chelsea Council is negotiating with 15 leaseholders about payouts for their homes after the fire in June which killed at least 71 residents.
Although not all of the flats were burnt – with Grenfell Tower due to be demolished after March next year – leaseholders in the tower and connected low rise cannot return to their homes and need to buy a new property.
They are unhappy that the terms of reference for the valuations use the term ‘North Kensington’ as opposed to the W11 postcode of Grenfell Tower.
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Tiago Alves, who is leading the leaseholder negotiations with the council, said: “Grenfell has a W11 postcode and other similar W11 properties are valued at £1,400 per square foot but the term North Kensington includes the W10 postcode where similar properties have been valued for only £1,000 per square metre.”
Flats at Grenfell Tower have been valued per square foot at £1,100 for one bedrooms and £1,000 for two bedrooms. The square footage at Grenfell Walk – a connected low rise – has been valued at £680 per square foot for one bedrooms.
RBKC has offered valuations based on the estimated cost of a new build, including a 20% uplift, but leaseholders say this is not enough to buy locally.
Leaseholder Said Moussaid, 53, has lived at Grenfell Walk since 1989 and bought his flat in 2000. Technically it is classified as a one bedroom but also has a second single bedroom.
Mr Moussaid said: “Potentially all that I could buy with this is an ex-council flat in a tower block and after the fire, I’m not comfortable with living in a tower block.”
Mr Alves whose father is a leaseholder from Grenfell Tower, said his parents had been offered a total of £960,000 for their three-bed flat.
He told Inside Housing: “They are struggling to find something locally with all the amenities that they had at Grenfell including access to the garages at the bottom of the tower.”
According to estate agents Foxtons, the average price of a property in W11 has increased by 14.87% during the past six years.
The average flat price in W11 is £1,075,965 and the average house price is £2,984,286.
A council spokesperson said: “Valuations were carried out by a professional valuer and were assessed as the costs of rebuilding the flats in Grenfell Tower and Walk on a like for like basis – as is required by their leases. If leaseholders are unhappy with the offer, the council will give money to the family so that they can get another valuation independently. So far nobody has taken us up on that.”
