The Fold was completed in 2022, but just three years later, its owners are forcing all residents to leave in order to carry out a full refurbishment of the mould-ridden building – and it’s a symptom of a wider problem
“It’s 2025 and my apartment costs £2,500 a month – I shouldn’t have to plan for an emergency because I don’t trust what I’m being told.”
Tom Willoughby has his cat carrier by the front door of his flat in Croydon town centre. The top is open so that, if a fire breaks out, he’s ready to stuff his cat Roo safely inside, grab his partner and escape.
However The Fold, the “luxury” tower block where the pair and their pet live, won’t be home for much longer. The three-year-old building in Park Lane is so riddled with problems that every person living in the 251 flats is being moved out for at least two years, so the block can effectively be rebuilt from the inside out.
But the fire safety defects that have prompted the mass exodus are just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Since first getting the keys in 2022, residents have lived with pervasive mould and damp, sewage leaks, and regular lift breakdowns that have seen people carrying bags, prams and even loved ones up some of its 35 storeys.
“We are some of the lucky ones,” said Abhishek Gundkar, who has lived at The Fold with his partner Poonam since the “luxury” build-to-rent tower opened. We’ve found a place in Park Hill, where my child goes to school. But imagine if your children had just started school and then you’re told you have to move. What if we had to relocate even further away?”
Management of The Fold, Urban Bubble, will give residents six months to relocate so the owners Legal & General (L&G) can strip the flats “back to their concrete shell”, in works expected to take until at least 2027.
Some of the cheapest one-bedroom flats at The Fold cost £1,480 a month but others, like Tom, are paying considerably more.
Issues at The Fold stem from its botched construction. Soon after opening in 2022, the building began experiencing leaks that forced the closure of the rooftop shared space. Despite repair efforts, damp and mould quickly became widespread throughout the flats.
By late 2024, engineers uncovered cold bridging in the cladding – effectively a weak spot in its insulation – caused by poor installation. The faulty insulation created cold spots where condensation formed, driving damp, mould and potential structural damage.
In 2025, fire safety experts found defective fire stopping in bathrooms, requiring extensive work that will strip some flats back to bare concrete and shut off water across the building. L&G insists the building is safe but that the extent of the work requires empty flats. Residents, seeing workers in protective clothing as the strip-out begins in some flats, just don’t believe that.
While Abhishek and his family have secured a nearby home, many others haven’t been as fortunate. Several residents say similar properties in Croydon are already full, forcing some to search as far afield as North London and Dartford.
Abhishek described the past year at The Fold as a “horrific experience” that deeply affected his family, though they escaped the worst of the mould. “The lift is often broken,” he said. “Twice, my wife had to carry our two-year-old son from the ground floor to the 27th. She couldn’t even stop halfway to rest; the key fob only allowed exit on certain floors.
“I’ve seen people stuck in the lift for over 30 minutes. After 6pm, staff left and only security remained at reception. When we called for help, they said they didn’t have the lift key.”
‘We had a bath full of poo’
But it’s the sewage leaks that are perhaps the most stomach-churning, and hazardous, issue that residents have experienced. At a public meeting last month, angry residents shared their horror stories as they heard of the need to move them out.
James Hutton and his partner, Meltem Gurpinar, were among the first residents to move in. What promised to be a top notch apartment with strong transport links turned into a nightmare. “There was sewage coming out of the bath,” James told the meeting. “We had a bath full of poo, basically.”
Several tenants reported respiratory problems and hospital visits as a result of mould while one said he spent two nights in A&E, considering it respite from the distressing issues.
Gabriel Duran, who lives with housemates Andrea Casassamond and Filomena Valenta, said they often relied on fellow tenants to learn about the building’s problems. Gabriel said. “We only found out about the mould and other issues through the residents’ WhatsApp group. Management told us nothing.”
“It’s like the management don’t give a f**k,” added Andrea.
What went so badly wrong at The Fold would be assumed to be an isolated problem. One set of builders made a grievous blunder that was very unlikely to be repeated – right?
But you don’t have to look too far to find similar stories about newbuilds in London. When the award winning construction of Kelso Cochrane House was officially opened in May 2024 by Kensington and Chelsea Council it was hailed by a government minister as an “example of new social housing supporting healthy, prosperous neighbourhoods in London”.
Just one year later the 38 flats in Kensal Road, North Kensington, were riddled with mould, damp, and collapsed ceilings, and residents have been regularly left without heating and hot water due to issues with the supposedly state-of-the-art plumbing system. Combined with a faulty fire alarm that goes off all hours of the day and night, and a lift that has regularly broken down, the £1,300 a month some residents are paying to live there feels unjust.
Kensington and Chelsea Council has since appointed a specialist company to carry out servicing and health checks to all the fan coil units and mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems within the building, to resolve the issues. Meanwhile it was also tracing the source of the leak. The council says it’s determined to make sure this doesn’t happen with any more of its new buildings.
But issues with newbuilds in London have been coming up for years. Within as little as 12 months in a number of cases, flats have started leaking, plaster has started cracking and in severe cases, ceilings have collapsed. In 2022 MyLondon reported how the building at 53 Agar Grove in Camden, built in 2018, had become structurally unsound. One resident reported leaking walls within days of moving in, in 2019, having spent £800,000 on a new apartment.
The outgoing leader of Southwark Council said in April his council focussed too much on building a lot of homes quickly, and they should have focussed on quality. At the time over 70 per cent of the borough’s council homes lacked an up-to-date electrical safety certificate and many didn’t even have smoke alarms.
The drive to hit housing targets appears to be a priority over ensuring quality, and it’s not just unpleasant and unjust for residents, it’s hazardous.
Francis Chirinda, who pays over £2,000 a month in rent at The Fold, was hospitalised twice with chest infections he believes were caused by mould in his apartment. The situation forced him to take unpaid leave and rely on antibiotics.
Francis first raised concerns in April 2025 about residents’ exposure to contaminated hallways, lifts, and communal areas. Despite repeated follow-ups, his request for an air purifier was only fulfilled last month.
“When something like that happens, you lose trust—not just in them, but in the system,” he said.
Residents have been offered an initial compensation package by L&G, including £1,000, housing support, and a four-month rent debt write-off. However, many have called the offer “insulting,” with Andrea remarking: “It’s not even crumbs.”
‘We would like to apologise’
A spokesperson for L&G said: “The safety and wellbeing of residents remains our top priority, and The Fold’s management team is doing everything that it can to expediate remediation where possible, and to support residents ahead of vacating the property in advance of the 1 March 2026 deadline.
“As we have progressed certain aspects of the remediation, workers have been coming into the building to undertake repairs. They have a professional duty to wear required safety equipment, which we can appreciate may have been unsettling in some instances for residents.
“We recognise that our communication to notify residents of the actions being taken could have been better, and for this we would like to apologise. We have since put in place a process to ensure a more consistent and transparent level of communication, which includes weekly updates on the status of building works, and assistance in sourcing alternative accommodation. We have also held 1:1 meetings with vulnerable residents to provide individual support where required.”
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