Fiona and Jimmy Vallance have lived in their two-bedroom former council flat in Scotland for 40 years – then they were given two hours’ notice to leave the property they owned.
The couple find themselves in the middle of a concrete crisis causing financial turmoil and emotional devastation for homeowners.
Sky News has been told more than 2,000 homes with collapse-risk RAAC could be demolished across Britain, with the vast majority in Scotland.
“It’s just been a complete, utter nightmare,” says Ms Vallance, sobbing as she recalls talks about being referred to mental health medics.
“This is actually worse than a death. At least if somebody died in your family, you can have a few months to get over it. This never goes away.”
‘I wake up crying’
The couple, who are aged 59 and 63, finally paid off their mortgage for the flat in Clackmannanshire in 2013. It was a huge moment of personal achievement.
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But everything changed in October last year, when, as they recalled it, a chap at the door one evening gave them two hours’ notice to leave their property and never return. Engineers, he said, had discovered their roof could cave in.
Barely able to hold a conversation, the couple now sit clutching each other’s hands as they agreed to talk to us about their harrowing, ongoing ordeal.
They are surrounded by boxes in the homeless accommodation they have lived in ever since.
Broken, they are ravaged by the pain of their lives being thrown up in the air.
“I wake up in the morning crying,” says Ms Vallance.
“I wake up during the night thinking about it. It’s just on your mind all the time. It’s absolutely wrecked our lives.”
Although officials are likely to offer the couple market value for their family home, they say they will never be able to get another mortgage and now face a ruined retirement.
Ms Vallance continued: “I have even had to stop my wee cleaning jobs because I can’t go out and clean someone else’s home when I haven’t got home of my own.
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The RAAC crisis
RAAC is a cheap, lightweight, “bubbly” material that was used in construction between the 1950s and 1990s.
It was mostly used for flat roofs – but also in walls and floors.
In the 1990s, structural engineers discovered the strength of RAAC wasn’t standing the test of time and only had a lifespan of around 30 years – putting buildings at risk of collapse.
The Vallance family’s tower block in Tullicoultry now lies empty waiting for possible demolition. It is eerily quiet and looks like a crime scene with metal grates used to board up the windows and doors.
It is a community wiped out in the blink of an eye – but it’s not alone.
Around 100 miles north in Aberdeen officials have decided to flatten and rebuild more than 500 homes with potentially deadly RAAC at a cost of £150m. It will be the UK’s single biggest housing victim of this scandal.
Most affected are council tenants who have been uprooted to different temporary accommodation across the city. Around 100 properties are privately owned.
Owners have told Sky News they face financial ruin after being offered a severely diminished price of the original value of their now RAAC-ravaged home.
“I’ll be paying for rubble,” said local schoolteacher Amie Bruce.
The 27-year-old, who now faces homelessness, bought her home less than three years ago.
She is now staring down the barrel of negative equity and being saddled with debt – without a property to show for it.
Ms Bruce said: “It’s a complete ghost town at the moment. There’s properties empty, left, right and centre.
“My house is valued at around about £125,000, but the council have said that they would then be taking off the cost of repair of the roof to bring it back up to the standard it should be at. It’s looking like that will be around about £70,000.
“That takes it right down to £55,000 that I will be getting back and will still leave me with around £50,000 to £55,000 of a mortgage to pay.”
‘One of the hardest decisions’
Aberdeen City Council told Sky News it “aimed” to buy the privately-owned homes by “voluntary agreement” with owners offered “market value” and other associated costs.
A spokeswoman said: “This is one of the hardest decisions the council has taken. We recognise the impact this will have on residents, many having lived in their home for many years.
“The absolute priority has to be their safety. The welfare of people is what matters most, and we will continue to offer individuals and families one-to-one support whilst meeting their housing needs as far as possible from existing stock.”
Campaigners claim there is a postcode lottery of treatment for victims of this crisis.
The UK RAAC Campaign Group say homeowners in one area are being offered the prices of their properties prior to RAAC being discovered while people in neighbouring councils are having tens of thousands wiped from their valuations.
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Chairman Wilson Chowdhry said: “Without a national fund, councils cannot make the decisions they need to make to provide a fair deal for homeowners who are now paying for mistakes of councils and the government from the 1960s.
“This is unfair. It will leave a large number of people homeless, on benefits and probably in dire distress and depression. The governments need to step up.”
