Gove meets lenders to unblock ‘thousands’ of property sales stalled by cladding crisis
It is reported that Secretary of State explored solutions that would help vendors trapped by lenders' 'adverse risk' approach to leaseholders.
Housing Secretary Michael Gove has held new talks with lenders to try and free up the thousands of property sales stalled by the cladding crisis.
It is reported that lenders including Barclays, Nationwide and Lloyds Banking Group discussed ways to help thousands of homeowners to sell their properties.
The Sky News report reveals that a Whitehall source said Mr Gove was “in listening mode”, while one bank insider described the meeting as “constructive”.
In February, it was reported that several estate agencies have taken down listings after they were revealed to have been promoting homes for sale within a tower block adversely affected by the cladding scandal.
Earlier this month sources said the government was exploring ways to penalise companies implicated by the public inquiry into the Grenfell disaster.
Dangerous cladding
Suggestions were said to include barring those developers responsible for dangerous cladding from public contracts and for an extra £1bn to be released for medium-rise buildings.
Also, the Financial Times recently reported that the Bank of England’s prudential regulatory arm was asking banks to audit their exposure to homes that might be unsellable.
Earlier this year, the major high street banks agreed to modify their mortgage-lending assessments of some tall buildings in order to unblock thousands of prospective property transactions.
A DLUHC spokesman said Gove’s meeting with lenders had explored solutions that would drive out excessive risk aversion from the market.
“Leaseholders are innocent parties in this. As the secretary of state has made clear, we are committed to ensuring they are supported and protected and we will be setting out further proposals in due course,” they said.
