I bought my dream London flat for £800k five years ago… now it's worth nothing and I fear it's falling apart

An apartment building has been declared derelict after apartment owners said they could feel the building shake when a truck drove past it.

Dan Bruce, 40, fears that his whole building will fall apart if nothing is done to solve the endless problems.

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Located in the village CamdenDan thought he was starting an exciting new chapter when he purchased a top floor apartment in the Agar grove complex in March 2019.

Dan said: “I've got a house, it's got to be a house I paid a lot of money for, £800,000, and it's worth nothing.

“And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

“And that made me terribly angry.”

The property had only been built the year before and looked stunning, both in the brochures and when he looked around, he said.

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

The floors in the apartments began to be repaired rotten – which caused noticeable tilt and unevenness in many rooms, Dan claims.

He also claims that his terrace and bathrooms began to leak, causing significant damage to the exterior facades of the building.

And the bathroom floor collapsed in on itself and is unusable due to plumbing issues, leaving the room covered moldhe added.

Dan said MyLondon that he's afraid the building is going to topple over: “Every time the building moves, or every time there's a loud noise, you wake up and you're also going to check to make sure everything's okay.

“I have this nightmare that one of the corners [of the building] just falls away and I have to go and pick everybody up, knock on every door to get everybody out.'

Dan added that he couldn't use his kitchen for days or even weeks because electric problems – due to leaking ceiling during heavy rain.

The building is not structurally safe according to Dan and Alexandra Druzhynin, another apartment owner, who also claims that strong winds and trucks are causing the apartments to shake.

They claim that windows began to bend under the pressure exerted on them from both sides.

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

“We had surveys, we made sure that there is structural guaranteeswe made sure there was building insurance,” Dan asserts.

According to Dan, the developers would paint over problems days or hours before the show to hide shoddy work.

However, the developer and owner of these flats – Prime Metro Properties – told The Sun: “This is absolutely untrue and Prime Metro had no idea the problems that are occurring today existed.

“If the problems were invisible to the surveyors hired by the buyers, how could Prime Metro know.”

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

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

“They have no right to mindlessly sign the building.

“It was objectively reckless,” he added.

Building control Salus told The Sun: “We categorically deny that the property was defective at the time it was given building control permission.”

Acasta European Insurance Company Limited is responsible for payment money according to the claims of the owners of the apartments in the house.

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

They said that their claims were recognized, but no one came to their senses to investigate right.

“It may not be their fault, but they have an obligation to us under the Insurance Act to pay any sums due under the policy within a reasonable time.

“They didn't,” Dan explained.

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

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

London Fire Brigade issued an enforcement notice in 2021 for the building, which Dan claims 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 last October, where he “assured” residents that “his team is going to find creative solutions.”

“And yet, Department for raising the level, housing and communal economy (DLUHC) have been involved for a year and there has been no significant change,” Dan explained.

The DLUHC told The Sun that they held meetings with Prime Metro and Acasta after Dan and others visited Agar Grove.

“The Secretary of State has made it absolutely clear that those who were supposed to help tenants were moving too slowly.

“We have been in regular correspondence with the residents, and we are considering what steps we will take next.

“Acasta must meet its warranty obligations quickly so that tenants who have been unfairly affected can move on,” said a DLUHC spokesperson.

In total, Dan believes he owes around £1.5m, including the money he originally paid for the flat, plus his court costs and compensation for five years of stress and terrible living conditions.

However, Dan believes that at this stage his money should come from the government.

“If the government as a whole believed that we had built safe houses, then there is no risk for them to support if things go wrong, because it should be minimal,” he said.

“And the government also allowed lax regulations, they turned it on essentially.”

Stuart Power, director of Salus Building Control, told The Sun: “We fully understand the significant frustration that owners of flats in Agar Grove feel when they want to fix existing defects.

“After all this time, it is surprising that the insurers, builders and new build warranty subcontractors did not work together to discover the cause of the defects.

“We have publicly proposed this course of action several times and offered to assist in this process if we can, but so far to no avail.

“Therefore, we again urge insurers, developers and subcontractors to do the right thing as occupiers must be given a fruitful route to redress without further delay.”

The Sun reached out to Acasta Europe Limited for comment but did not receive a response.

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