A significant proportion of the housing stock in Scottish cities consists of stone-built tenement blocks of at least one hundred years of age. These properties are generally well-built and essentially sound. However, erosion of the sandstone used in many of these properties is becoming a significant problem, with an estimated reparation cost of £1 billion in the coming years (Scottish Stone Liaison Group, Scotland on Sunday newspaper, 18 April 2010 http://www.scotsman.com/news/163-1bn-repair-bill-for-crumbling-tenements-1-1366036). Deaths from falling masonry have occurred and city councils are grappling with the practical aspects of dealing with such a substantial problem but in most cases the actual cost of repairs falls to the owners. This can run into many thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. At the moment, only councils are exempt from VAT on such repairs and they are overwhelmed by the size of the problem while housing associations, owners and factors get no encouragement to organise repairs themselves.
I believe that a concerted approach is required by all Scottish council and government representatives to raise awareness of the problem at Westminster. England does not have the substantial tenement landscape of Scottish cities. I know that the scale of the problem has been acknowledged and written about occasionally in the press, but I have seen no evidence of any substantive political attempt to change the status quo despite problems in Edinburgh that have led to the complete breakdown of non-emergency repairs amid accusations of bribery and overcharging - a new process within Edinburgh is not now expected until 2013.
I hope that this petition will raise support for action to be taken, although any success is likely to be far too late for our own project, now under way at a cost of £200,000 plus VAT.
A substantial proportion of the costs involved in tenement repairs carried out by owners is the VAT which is currently levied on all such building repairs, even those on listed buildings. VAT is outwith the remit of the Scottish Government but the effect of VAT on Scottish housing repairs is so crippling that the issue should be raised at UK level. A preferential VAT rate for building work on mutually-owned properties (or even VAT exemption on repairs to listed buildings) would help counter-balance the problems being encountered by a large proportion of the populace of Scottish cities, and promote the preservation of the housing stock for generations to come.
If VAT concessions cannot be achieved, some other incentive is required to get owners acting to preserve our traditional housing stock. In the event that no change to UK legislation can be brought about, perhaps the Scottish Government could provide grant aid or subsidy to match at least the VAT on mutual repairs, if necessary by using its tax powers to generate income for this particularly Scottish problem.
How many properties in the major cities of Scotland are crumbling because the cost of maintaining them is beyond the owners? We have been unable to identify any available grants whatsoever, even for a listed building in a heritage area. What chance do ordinary tenements have?