Rental Wall Collapse Killing Grandmother Could Have Been Prevented, Coroner Finds

Concerns about a crumbling wall that collapsed and killed a 77-year-old grandmother were raised eight years before the tragedy, an assistant coroner has found.

Clarice Berry died from chest injuries on July 18, 2021, after the 3,800kg gable wall of her rental property in Wigan fell and buried her alive. Assistant coroner for Manchester West, Bronia Hartley, ruled that Mrs. Berry's death could have been prevented if action had been taken to repair the wall.

The coroner stated that concerns about the wall were repeatedly raised but no action was taken, despite multiple inspections of the home highlighting that the gable wall needed "urgent" repairs.

In a report published on Thursday, Ms. Hartley detailed that Mrs. Berry's husband had reported the bowing wall nearly eight years before her death. The home, an end-of-terrace rental property in Greater Manchester, was owned by S&G Properties (No2) Limited and managed by KMPM.

According to Ms. Hartley's report, the property showed signs of cavity wall tie erosion from 2013 onwards. Mr. Berry's concerns were initially reported to the property's previous managing agent, but the issues were not addressed when a new managing agent, Kaye Mackenzie, took over.

A property manager from Kaye Mackenzie visited the property in August 2013 and noted in his records: "Gable wall big bulge in wall – needs urgent repointing/rebuild." The same manager revisited the property in March 2016 and observed that the gable "needs repointing."

The manager retired when Kaye Mackenzie was dissolved in January 2020. One of the former partners continued property management operations under the company KMPM. Around February or March 2021, a gas engineer working at the property to install a new boiler also pointed out the bulge in the gable wall, but no repairs were carried out.

Ms. Hartley's report noted that "There was no monitoring of, and no structural engineer or quantity surveyor was instructed to investigate, the defective brickwork." Investigations after Mrs. Berry's death revealed that the bowing had been caused by the complete failure of a series of wall ties in the upper part of the cavity wall beneath the gable.

The inquest heard that the wall's collapse was "inevitable" without necessary repairs and likely would not have survived another winter. Ms. Hartley concluded that any reasonably competent property management company and/or responsible landlord would have at least monitored the wall for progression and, by 2018, would have initiated a structural survey.

Such investigations, the coroner found, would have prevented the collapse that led to Mrs. Berry's death. She determined that neither the landlord nor the property management company had followed government guidance aimed at minimizing potential hazards. Ms. Hartley also noted a lack of clear systems to prevent similar incidents, such as a hazard developing during a tenancy, being reported but not addressed appropriately or in a timely manner, or not being identified by the tenant.

Neither company conducted a post-incident evaluation to assess if their properties were free from serious, outstanding hazards not yet known to the local authority. In response to the findings, a director for S&G Properties (No2) Limited stated that Mrs. Berry's death was a "terrible tragedy" and that the company has since arranged for independent inspections of all its residential properties. KMPM reported undertaking a comprehensive review of its property management procedures and implementing significant changes to its inspection, hazard identification, escalation, compliance monitoring, and project management processes.