Brighton residents hit with £120k repair bill

9:10am Wednesday 6th February 2013 in News By Bill Gardner

Scaffolding holding up the building in College Street, Brighton Scaffolding holding up the building in College Street, Brighton

A group of residents face a bill for tens of thousands of pounds after insurers ruled a botched repair job had left their homes at risk of collapse.

Construction work has begun to rebuild the outside wall of their three-storey building in College Road, Brighton, after it was declared unsafe in July.

Nearby College Street has also had to be closed for months due to scaffolding.

But now the leaseholders of the four flats have been told that the £120,000 bill to repair the property will not be covered by their insurance company.

It has refused to pay for the work saying the damage was caused during an attempt at renovation.

One furious leaseholder told The Argus that Mark Packwood, the building’s property manager, was at fault.

He said: “We were told that the wall needed repairing so Mr Packwood told us he’d got a builder to do the work.

“A few days after the work started, one of the leaseholders got an urgent call from one of her tenants telling her that cracks had appeared on the wall of her flat.”

Beyond repair

According to the leaseholder, who did not wish to be named, the builder employed “two lads” to remove the render from the old bungaroosh walls.

He said: “They just attacked it with pneumatic drills. No wonder they destroyed it.”

When surveyor Philip Goacher examined the College Road flats, he found the work by the builders employed by Mr Packwood had left the wall beyond repair.

And when insurance investigators from B Maule and Company came to visit, they came to the same conclusion and blocked the claim, leaving the leaseholders with a repair bill of more than £120,000.

Last night Mr Packwood insisted the builders had detected the damage to the wall but had not caused it.

He said: “When we repaired the wall, we found it was unstable.

“The surveyor condemned the wall and said we should support it very quickly, which is exactly what we did.”

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Comments(15)

Morpheus says...
9:27am Wed 6 Feb 13

Isn't the freeholder ultimately responsible for this mess? There is no mention of the freeholder in this report. Who is it?

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LB says...
9:28am Wed 6 Feb 13

There's going to be years of litigation on this before it's resolved.

I feel sorry for the residents and leaseholders.

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mark by the sea says...
9:34am Wed 6 Feb 13

The type of wall mentioned is made up of basically rubbish, normally half bricks, pebbles, etc, when render is removed, this normally ends up in. Mess, the lime mortar between the thrown together wall is crumbly and weak.
I assume there were problems with the existing render?
Removing render with a kango is fast, however even on sound brickwork, this tool in the wrong hands can do more damage than good!
No mention of the building company? Or is the job a typical management number?

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Krisskross says...
9:56am Wed 6 Feb 13

Don't get me started on PPS and Mark Packwood. How they are still trading despite many of his previous companies dissolved or in liquidation is beyond me. I truly feel sorry for the residents.

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spa301 says...
10:02am Wed 6 Feb 13

Krisskross wrote:
Don't get me started on PPS and Mark Packwood. How they are still trading despite many of his previous companies dissolved or in liquidation is beyond me. I truly feel sorry for the residents.
Mark Packwood and PPS are certainly well known for dubious reasons.
Try Mark Packwood in search.

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mark by the sea says...
10:14am Wed 6 Feb 13

The lease holders should get cowboy builders in or watchdog, sadly the managing agent will serve a section notice on the mortgage building society, and get the money .
The " builders" seem to have hacked off the whole side? The re render should have been done in bands, starting at the top using EML . This would stabilise the brickwork..
Looks like kids have been let loose .
Who is the builder?

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Martha Gunn says...
10:22am Wed 6 Feb 13

Mark Packwood and PPS - now why do those names ring a bell?

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gusset snatcher says...
10:38am Wed 6 Feb 13

this should've been covered or part covered by the builders or Packwoods public liability insurance. I doubt that 2 lads with breakers could have caused the whole wall to become unstable but isn't Packwood a 'Managing Agent' that rips off leaseholders in the blocks they manage for £1000's for inflated cost building works, There's still a lot of that going on in blocks where lessees can't agree to buy the freehold and they're at the mercy of people like Packwood who try to give an air of respectability to what amounts to legalised extortion.

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mustaphaLeeko says...
12:01pm Wed 6 Feb 13

Dear Argus,

Why do we have to sit through 30 seconds of adverts to watch a frankly CCCCrap video, with no commentary and no more informative than the picture that was already on the article.

This is just shockingly poor, and repeated on pretty much every article with a "news video".

It is obviously just to get us to watch your rubbishy adverts which plague every single page!

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Brighton Bill says...
5:01pm Wed 6 Feb 13

mustaphaLeeko wrote:
Dear Argus,

Why do we have to sit through 30 seconds of adverts to watch a frankly CCCCrap video, with no commentary and no more informative than the picture that was already on the article.

This is just shockingly poor, and repeated on pretty much every article with a "news video".

It is obviously just to get us to watch your rubbishy adverts which plague every single page!
This happens everytime you want to view a video. These cowboy builders should be jailed for causing so much misery to so many.

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imnotpc says...
8:43pm Wed 6 Feb 13

I must say i roared with laughter when i read this.Absolute classic fawlty towers hahahahahahahahahaha
hah lol

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Music Lover says...
4:56am Thu 7 Feb 13

If Packwood Property Services carried out the work which has left the wall irreparable then surely they are responsible?

I would have thought that a claim could be pursued under PPS' liability insurance by the lessees.

Its then for PPS to deal with the builder/s who may also have insurance.

Pure incompetence from PPS has caused this ultimately!

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NJWSmith says...
7:33pm Thu 7 Feb 13

PPS, Mark Packwood, or any of his other trading names, is a man to be avoided. We sacked him 4 years ago, but we too allowed him to instruct builders that now leave us having to redo the work. He's a con man, pure and simple, and I don't understand how he can keep trading, and how people keep using him as a managing agent. When you meet him he's very charming, as any con man is. Don't be fooled.

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Brighton Bill says...
10:04pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Well said NJWSmith, all reputable Brighton Builders should get together and get him banned from causing anymore problems and misery. Why are the Building Associations not getting involved including the Trading Standards.

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bonnalb says...
8:02pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Yes Mark Packwood is a con man who steals his clients' money. We have now to take him to court to get the money he owes you (we are a small group of leaseholders/freehol
ders who very unwisely had gone to him for the management of our property). Stay away from him.

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