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This article focuses on the predicament of owner-occupiers and small investors presently liable for the removal of combustible cladding on build-to-sell residential high-rise. We argue that while the proliferation of combustible materials has been shaped by cost-cutting and risk-shifting by construction firms, these practices did not on their own transfer the responsibility of remediation to consumers. Examining the attempts of one densifying nation, Australia, to locate responsibility for combustible cladding through two parliamentary inquiries, we analyse witness testimonies to show how public policies encouraged materials substitution, removed on-site inspection and protected corporations from litigation. Moving beyond neoliberalism, these policy reforms leveraged information asymmetries and the material complexity of residential high-rise to create a climate of "imperceptibility" towards unsafe materials. Together, material, financial and policy dimensions intersected to enable capital accumulation through the expansion of consumer harm in high-rise housing markets. We conclude that construction materials and processes are an overlooked, yet critical domain of governance in financialised housing regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the relevance of mortgage-led consumption for the assemblage of home. Drawing on qualitative research completed in the UK, we show how the materials and meanings of owner-occupation are constituted by, and experienced through, the accumulation and deployment of secured debt. This is enabled by a particular financial regime, in which the proceeds of equity borrowing are freed for discretionary expenditure. Homes and their contents thus acquire the status of “debted objects”, and these form an interface between the financial and familial values comprising residential space. By attending to these mortgage-enabled purchases, we expose and evaluate the myriad ways in which equity borrowings animate the assemblage of home, adding value to property, linking domestic space with distant geographies and inspiring the art of dwelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]