South London families are having to fork out £1,000 per year on insurance for their homes because of fears cladding on their apartment block is dangerous. 

Residents of Dane House in Sydenham are paying £23,000 between them annually due to insurers’ concerns that cladding on the third floor of their building is a fire risk.

The huge insurance bill has left some families fearing they’ll struggle to sell their £600,000 homes on the Exeter Place development in the future.

Many residents living there moved into the block in 2019 after its completion and had no idea the cladding on the top floor of the building could be potentially dangerous at the time. 

Mike Popesku, a marketing scientist who moved in four years ago, said the insurance costs were way too steep during a cost of living crisis.

The 41-year-old said: “Now we have huge inflation, it’s too much. We’re trying to manage the costs but we’re stuck with one insurer because no one else will insure it [the building].

“I’m paying about £1,000 for the insurance on this flat. When we moved in, we never knew the cladding was a problem. It was only after Grenfell that things changed.”

He added that Crest Nicholson, the company which built Dane House, had shown little interest in resolving the cladding problem.

He said: “I think they handed over the building and thought who cares?”

Timur Strekalov, a software developer who also moved into his flat in Dane House in 2019, said he paid about £1,000 for insurance the last time it came up for renewal. 

The 36-year-old said: “I’m somewhat concerned with the cladding issue making the flat hard to sell. I’ve had friends that couldn’t sell their flat because of that. They had to wait until everything was fixed.”

He added: “It’s just one of those things that you have to just live with. I would rather not pay lots, but it is what it is.”

Mr Strekalov and several other residents the Local Democracy Reporting Service spoke to also complained about repeated flooding of outdoor storage areas during heavy showers. 

Crest Nicholson said it believed the flooding was caused by water coming into an open car parking area, which  it said was an issue for the the block’s property managers.

Another resident Tony O’Gorman, who moved into Dane House in 2019, said the only comfort he could take from the situation was that neighbours had so far experienced no problem selling or buying homes in the block. 

Ellie Reeves, Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge raised the plight of residents in the flats in Sydenham to housing secretary Michael Gove, during a debate in Parliament about building safety on January 30. 

Ellie Reeves told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It’s outrageous that Dane House residents are facing insurance bills of around £1,000 a year.

"This is more than six times the amount they were paying just over four years ago.

“Whilst the government likes to talk tough, in so many instances’ developers have still not been compelled to remove dangerous cladding and innocent residents continue to face astronomical bills.

“Nearly six years on from the horrific Grenfell tragedy, leaseholders are still waiting for action, and now also face a cost-of-living crisis.

"They need the government to pick up the pace and secure a resolution immediately.”

A Crest Nicholson spokesperson said: “The materials used on Dane House were compliant with building regulations at the time of construction and are also compliant with recently revised building regulations.

“Although Dane House is only nine metres in height, Crest Nicholson commissioned a fire engineer to review the building in 2020.

"That assessment deemed it safe subject to the replacement of a limited amount of balcony decking. Following those balcony works, an acceptable EWS1 was issued by the fire engineer.”