Homeowners have reacted with “horror” after parliament finally voted against protecting them from post-Grenfell fire safety costs that could run to £10bn. Campaigners for hundreds of thousands of people trapped with devastating bills to make their homes safe said Wednesday night’s vote in the House of Lords against protecting them “pulls the rug from under a generation of leaseholders”. It comes after weeks of debates in parliament in which the government rejected calls from Labour and about 30 rebel Tory MPs for them to meet the cost and recoup the money from property developers. Many homeowners say they now face financial ruin and warn that the decision to make them pay places lives at risk. Labour estimates the crisis has left 1.3m flats unmortgageable, and the crisis is so widespread, the Bank of England has been examining lenders’ exposure to blocks that have fire safety concerns to determine whether the building safety crisis affects their stability. It currently thinks banks can absorb the risk. Thousands of blocks of flats were found to have serious fire defects after the Grenfell fire on 14 June 2017, including having similar cladding, but also missing fire breaks in wall cavities and combustible balconies. Many developers have been refusing to pay to fix the faults, leaving residents facing bills running into the tens of thousands each and additional running costs for fire wardens to patrol buildings. Living with the fear of financial ruin and of fire has caused a mental health crisis among many. End Our Cladding Scandal said the bill passed “much to the horror of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people across the country whose lives are being ruined by the building safety crisis”. The campaign group said: “As much as the government is gambling with our finances, it is also gambling with our lives. Nearly four years after Grenfell and thousands of buildings across the UK are still covered with combustible materials and structurally unable to withstand fire. “The fear of going bankrupt is nothing in comparison to the real and ongoing terror many of us experience when we lay in bed at night, trying to sleep, hoping this nightmare will end one day.” The House of Lords finally voted against trying to protect the affected leaseholders after the Commons voted five times against ther plan, led by the government and its housing minister Christopher Pincher. Large numbers of Labour peers abstained in the Lords, angering some Labour supporting leaseholders. In February, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, told parliament: “No leaseholder should have to pay for the unaffordable costs of fixing safety defects that they didn’t cause and are no fault of their own.” Campaigners say he has now broken that promise. MPs have calculated that the total bill could reach £15bn, but so far the government has promised only £5bn to fund cladding repairs on buildings over 18 metres tall. It has offered loans on repairs on shorter properties, which it argues are less of a risk, but leaseholders say this leaves them with the same financial burden. The government has estimated the cost to leaseholders of the legislation, which will now pass through the Commons on Thursday, could be up to £75,000 for each leaseholder. Campaigners said they will not stop fighting to get justice. One leaseholder, Jake Maarschalkerweerd de Klotz, wrote on Twitter: “Moving between disbelief, anger, fear, desperation and exasperation following the fire safety bill passing without any protection for leaseholders … leaseholders have done everything right and nothing wrong. We fight on.” Grenfell United, the bereaved families and survivors group, said: “We’re deeply disappointed that ministers have broken their promises to leaseholders who have done absolutely nothing wrong. The government’s position on this is indefensible. “It’s a grave injustice that many innocent leaseholders will be financially ruined over fire safety issues that were not of their own making, while the government is letting those responsible continue to get off scot free. “We, and other fire safety campaign groups, will continue to put pressure on ministers to do the right thing and end this nightmare for hundreds of thousands of people across the country.”