I bought my £800,000 flat five years ago… now I'm afraid it's going to collapse

An apartment building has been declared worthless after apartment owners claimed they could feel the building shaking when a truck drove past.

Dan Bruce, 40, fears his entire building will fall apart if nothing is done to fix the endless problems.

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Based in Camden, Dan thought he was starting an exciting new chapter when he bought the top floor apartment in the Agar Grove complex in March 2019.

Dan said: 'I have a house, it's meant to be a home, that I paid a lot of money for, £800,000, and it's worth zero.

'And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

“And that absolutely infuriates me.”

The property had been built just a year earlier and looked beautiful, both in the brochures and when he looked around, he said.

However, it quickly turned into a nightmare when Dan and the other new owners noticed serious problems.

The floors in the flats began to rot, causing a noticeable slope and unevenness in many rooms, Dan claims.

He also claims that his terrace and bathrooms started leaking, causing extensive damage to the building's exterior facade.

And the bathroom floor collapsed on its own and cannot be used due to plumbing problems, leaving the room covered in mold, he added.

Daan told me My London that he is afraid that the building will fall over: “Every time the building moves, or every time there is a loud noise, you are awake, and you also go to check whether everything is okay.

“I have a nightmare that is one of the corners [of the building] just falls away and I have to go get everyone, knock on every door to get everyone out.

Dan added that he can't use his kitchen for days or even weeks due to electrical problems because the ceiling leaks when it rains heavily.

The building is not structurally safe according to Dan and Alexandra Druzhinin, another apartment owner, who also claim that high winds and trucks are shaking the apartments.

They claim that the windows have started to bend due to the pressure exerted on them from both walls on either side.

Dan said he checked everything about the property before moving in and even hired a conveyancing lawyer in lieu of the buildings.

“We did surveys, we made sure we had structural guarantees, we made sure there was building insurance,” claims Dan.

According to Dan, in the days or hours before viewing, the developers were painting over issues to cover up the poor work.

However, the developer and owner of these apartments, Prime Metro Properties, told The Sun: “This is completely untrue and Prime Metro had no idea of ​​the existence of the problems being experienced today.

“If the problems were undetectable to surveyors employed by buyers, how could Prime Metro have known about them?”

Dan claims he is shocked that a building in this condition has been signed off by a licensed inspector from Salus Building Control & Fire Safety Consultants Limited.

He said: “The approved inspector should not have signed off on the building.

'They are not allowed to recklessly mark a building.

“This was objectively reckless,” he added.

Salus Building Control told The Sun: “We strongly deny that the property was defective at the time it was approved by building control.”

Acasta European Insurance Company Limited is responsible for paying out money for claims from the building's apartment owners.

Still, Dan and other owners said they haven't seen a cent, even though it's been five years since they filed their claims.

They said their claims have been recognized, but no one has come to investigate the matter.

“This is undoubtedly not their fault, but they do have obligations to us under the Insurance Act to pay all amounts due under a policy within a reasonable timeframe.

“They didn't,” Dan explained.

Over the past five years, the crumbling building has taken over Dan's life, he claims.

Dan said, “Every day Alex and I argue, we spend our time fighting and we spend money on lawyers and we are the victims here.”

The London Fire Brigade issued an enforcement notice on the building in 2021, which Dan says has still not been properly completed.

Fed up with the lack of action, Dan and Alex turned to the government for help.

Michael Gove visited Agar Grove in October last year, where he 'assured' residents that 'his team would find creative solutions'.

“And yet the Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has been involved for a year and there has been no substantive change,” Dan explained.

The DLUHC told The Sun they had meetings with Prime Metro and Acasta after visiting Dan and the others in Agar Grove.

“The Secretary of State has been absolutely clear that those who should have been helping leaseholders have all moved too slowly.

“We have been in regular contact with residents and we are considering what steps we will take in the future.

“Acasta must quickly meet its guarantee obligations so that the tenants, who have suffered unfairly, can get on with their lives,” said a DLUHC spokesperson.

In total, Dan estimates he owes around £1.5 million when you consider the money he originally paid for the flat, plus his legal fees and compensation for the five years of stress and terrible living conditions.

However, Dan thinks his money will have to come from the government at this stage.

“If the government in general believes that we have built safe houses, there is no risk for them to revert if something goes wrong because it should be minimal,” he said.

“And it is also the government that has allowed lax regulation, it has actually made this possible.”

Stuart Power, director of Salus Building Control, told The Sun: “We fully understand the significant frustration felt by flat owners in Agar Grove in having existing defects repaired.

“After all this time, it is astonishing that the new construction warranty insurers, developers and subcontractors have not worked together to determine the cause of the defects.

“We have publicly proposed this course of action on several occasions and offered to assist in this process where we can – but to no avail so far.

“So once again we call on insurers, developers and subcontractors to do the right thing as users must be given a fruitful path to recovery without further delay.”

The Sun reached out to Acasta Europe Limited for comment but received no response.

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