Crippling bill for flat

• I OWN a flat on the Highbury Quadrant estate, which was my home until 2007 when I moved to Scotland. Instead of selling the flat in 2007, I rented it out because I wasn’t sure if my move to Scotland would be permanent and I wanted to have an investment to use as a pension.
I now face a major works bill for £17,302. As a non-owner-occupier, I am not eligible for the extended repayment options, and so have to pay the full amount now, or in 24 monthly instalments of £750, neither of which I can afford. Remortgaging is not an option as my lender has been nationalised. Neither is it possible for me to get an unsecured loan for such a large amount under prevailing credit conditions.
This means I have to sell my would-be pension because of the major works. I feel sorely aggrieved about this as the reason I cannot meet the cost of the work is that it is ludicrously overpriced. This is because Homes for Islington (HfI) is inefficient and because the work is carried out in the least cost-effective way imaginable.
More vexing still is the fact that I cannot sell the flat because HfI has vacant possession of it and has done since the beginning of March 2009. On current information, the flat will not be returned to me until June. By then I will either have been hauled before the courts for non-payment of my major works bill or I will have imploded financially in a bid to find an extra £750 a month.
I therefore wrote to Councillor Terry Stacy asking for his suggestions as to how I might meet my bill. He didn’t provide me with any but he did give me a lecture on fair use of public funds.
But in my block alone £350,000 of public funds has been wasted because the buildings insurance was messed up. As a result it wasn’t possible to claim back the costs for underpinning from the insurer.
FIONA RINTOUL
Address supplied