HA replacing concrete finial gutters to detriment of private homes

itscheapandiwantit

I own an ex-local authority/housing association mid terraced house.

In June 2009 I received the following letter......

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The guttering at the front of my house was renewed for free because the housing association couldn't renew their properties guttering, leaving mine as originally built. The lack of downpipes, 3 downpipes for 8 terraced houses, that drain directly into underground drains, with no grids or gulleys, meant that they had no option but to replace the guttering on the private houses also.

The replacement method with PVC guttering is at a higher level than the original concrete finial guttering. Therefore as the private houses are not attached to any downpipes, they cannot get water to flow uphill, from the concrete to the plastic.

Private Houses on the estate that have concrete guttering and a downpipe were left and the other end of the concrete guttering capped off with cement. The concrete guttering on the LA/HA houses was replaced with new PVC because the water from the new guttering(higher level) could fall into the private houses (lower level) original concrete guttering.

The situation I am in is that of the 8 terraced houses, my house is number 4 of the block. Number 1 is LA/HA and has PVC guttering and a downpipe. Number 2 is private, and has had the original concrete guttering sealed at the end with cement. Numbers 3 and 4 are private and are original concrete. LA/HA have sealed the end of my guttering with cement but have done this at a point on number 5 guttering. They have done this because I wouldn't give permission to touch guttering on my property. So to the detriment of their own property, number 5, they have left a section of concrete in place. Number 5 has the second downpipe.

Numbers 5,6,7 and 8 have all been replaced with PVC. Number 8 has the third downpipe.

The result is that houses number1,2,3 and 4 originally benefited from downpipes 1 and 2. Since the replacement House 1 (LA/HA) has sole use of downpipe number 1. Houses 2,3 and 4 have lost the use of downpipe 1 and have increased water flow into downpipe 2.

I'm wondering if any building regulations or planning regulations have been breached here. The LA/HA houses have been improved to the detriment of the private houses. If the 3 private houses wanted to pay to replace this gutterring system, there is the issue of house 5 (LA/HA) having the eroneous section of concrete left in place, to avoid the (LA/HA) having to replace the full system. Interesting?

The front bedroom of my house had a damp patch so I was chuffed when they were doing that for free. The rear of the house has always been ok. Until this change in the number of downpipes. Baby's bedroom at the rear of the house is now getting damp patches over the window, when we've had none before. I'm also wondering if the removal work of next door, house 5, has dislodged jointing of the guttering on my house. As well as the brute force involved in the removal of house 5 gutters, they drilled a hole through the last section of concrete to facilitate an offset connection to the original downpipe on house 5. Lots of vibration I would think.

Also, If I wanted to replace my guttering to PVC, that would render houses 2 and 3 with no access to a downpipe. That's why I'm thinking this shouldn't be allowed. The LA/HA wanted to change the guttering system to the terrace, can they lawfully improve their houses to the detriment of private houses?

I apologise for the length of the post, but I cannot find the answers to this.

iamcornholio

Sorry, can you bullet point the question(s)

Just a caution from their letter - you actually have a 6 year liability periond for this work not 6 months. Do not agree to a 6 month period, and insist that you will retain your statutory defect period rights, and not limit it by agreeing to their 'contract'

keystone

itscheapandiwantit wrote: »

They have done this because I wouldn't give permission to touch guttering on my property.

Mmmm!

there is the issue of house 5 (LA/HA) having the eroneous section of concrete left in place, to avoid the (LA/HA) having to replace the full system. Interesting?

Which situation you say was caused by you refusing permission for them to touch your guttering or am I reading this wrong?

I'm also wondering if the removal work of next door, house 5, has dislodged jointing of the guttering on my house.............5. Lots of vibration I would think.

Yes quite likely but as you refused permission???????

.........can they lawfully improve their houses to the detriment of private houses?

If permission to touch yours had not been witheld then perhaps the situation would not have arisen.

Cheers

silvercar

Check the deeds of your house. You should have clauses that allow the guttering to flow from one to another to the downpipes and outlets. This won't mention the number and position of downpipes but will allow the flow of rainwater. This would suggest that they shouldn't have blocked off between 4 and 5.

I would suggest that they shouldn't have started work without the agreement of all the property owners and if they couldn't get agreement should have replanned. HOuse 2 sounds particularly badly effected.

Also, If I wanted to replace my guttering to PVC, that would render houses 2 and 3 with no access to a downpipe.

You can't do that, your deeds will state that you have to allow the rainwater to flow along the guttering and down your downpipe if that is what happens at the moment.

I don't know why you would refuse to allow the council to pay for new guttering for you. Unless you are in a conservation area or the outside of your house is particularly traditional and PVC would look odd, why retain concrete guttering at the end of its life?

itscheapandiwantit

Mmmm!

Which situation you say was caused by you refusing permission for them to touch your guttering or am I reading this wrong?

They refused to renew the private houses rear guttering. As my house is next to the LA/HA house with the 2nd downpipe, they wanted to drill through a section of my concrete guttering to connect to the dowmpipe. I refused to let them do this, so they have left a section of concrete on their own house and drilled through that.

Yes quite likely but as you refused permission???????

By refusing them permission to drill through my guttering, they had the option and permission from the 3 private houses to do the job properly and renew the whole terrace. We even asked them for a quote to do the work at a discounted rate whilst they were doing the rest of the terrace. They didn't offer one.

If permission to touch yours had not been witheld then perhaps the situation would not have arisen.

This situation has happened all over the estate, initially at the fronts of properties also, but when they left 1 or 2 mid terraced houses without access to downpipes, where could the water go? They had to fit every private home without access to a downpipe with the new PVC.

My situation may be unique with 3 private houses losing the use of 1 of their designed 2 downpipes. Also the rear of the properties is hidden and I wonder if they have flouted regulations?

I would think that if you are renewing a complete set of guttering, then you may keep the original design. ie 8 houses and 3 downpipes.

However if you are changing the design and downpipe allocation, wouldn't building regs or planning regs have to meet a standard. They didn't renew the front out of kindness, they've done it because they had to. But the rear of the terrace is exactly the same design, with 1 downpipe now removed from use.

itscheapandiwantit

silvercar wrote: »

Check the deeds of your house. You should have clauses that allow the guttering to flow from one to another to the downpipes and outlets. This won't mention the number and position of downpipes but will allow the flow of rainwater. This would suggest that they shouldn't have blocked off between 4 and 5.

I would suggest that they shouldn't have started work without the agreement of all the property owners and if they couldn't get agreement should have replanned. HOuse 2 sounds particularly badly effected.



You can't do that, your deeds will state that you have to allow the rainwater to flow along the guttering and down your downpipe if that is what happens at the moment.

I don't know why you would refuse to allow the council to pay for new guttering for you. Unless you are in a conservation area or the outside of your house is particularly traditional and PVC would look odd, why retain concrete guttering at the end of its life?

We didn't refuse them to pay for new guttering, they refused to do it. I only refused to let them drill through my guttering to force them to replace the whole system. They think they have been clever by leaving an eroneous section on their own property and drilling through that.

I know that I couldn't renew mine and leave the other private houses without access to downpipes, but that hasn't stopped the council from removing 1 downpipe access for three houses.

The 3 private houses asked for a discounted price to have the job properly done, and they wouldn't provide one.

Would it help if I took some pics?

Many thanks

itscheapandiwantit

iamcornholio wrote: »

Sorry, can you bullet point the question(s)

Just a caution from their letter - you actually have a 6 year liability periond for this work not 6 months. Do not agree to a 6 month period, and insist that you will retain your statutory defect period rights, and not limit it by agreeing to their 'contract'

1. The council have removed use of 1 of the 2 downpipes available to the guttering system of 3 private houses. Is this allowed?

2. This has increased the flow of water to the only available downpipe and this is causing water ingress problems.

3. Renewing guttering next door to me and drilling a large bore hole may have through vibration, damaged my guttering, Can I reasonably prove this?

4. I am wondering if they have breached planning regs or building regs with the work they have done.


Thanks for the advice about the six years. Will compose a letter to them.

WestonDave

1. Check your deeds - if it states certain rights and numbers of downpipes, then if they have breached this then you have a potential case. If it is silent on this or doesn't list numbers then you probably don't as you still have flow of water off your property.

2. Quite probably but the whole reason the HA were replacing the guttering is because concrete guttering was a bad idea in the first place and by now its pretty much all leaking and failing. Its going to be hard work proving that water ingress is now worse than it was before because of the changes rather than just because the guttering is now older and therefore failing more.

3. In reality all they may have done is dislodged already failing "grout" in the joints - any losses you could claim for this is going to be very minimal.

4. Planning regs - almost certainly not. Building regs - probably going to be a grey area if they have, because they technically haven't worked on your property so the work they have done on their property could probably be signed off as building regs compliant without reference to its impact on your property, however as the council will be independant of the HA you could always ask its building regs department for advice.


All that said - you accused them of trying to be clever by leaving the erroneous section - I would say you and your neighbours were trying to be clever and force them unfairly to pay for all your work when they already agreed to do half of it for free. Your decisions were probably poor - you had the chance to get the work done whilst they had contractors on site, had scaffolding available etc, and refused trying to be greedy. You are now left with failing guttering that none of you can replace without the others, and over time the failure is only going to get worse and cause other problems. The moneysaving thing to do at the time would have been to take their reasonable offer - trying to be clever and get it done for even more discount or free has backfired. It would be interesting to get a quote from an independant supplier to do the work now for the 3 houses and see how that compares to what the HA offered to do it for. I'd be surprised if the HA price wasn't good value.

itscheapandiwantit

This is how they have joined house 4 and 5. House 4 is mine.

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House 1 and 2. House 1 gains sole use of downpipe 1.

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Examples of the bodges done on other houses to avoid the repacement. The painted concrete gutters are the private houses.

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Clearly they have just bodged the job at the detriment of the the private houses. Although the last 2 pics have access to downpipes, the council have left concrete guttering on their own houses to facilitate connection to the downpipes.

itscheapandiwantit

WestonDave wrote: »

1. Check your deeds - if it states certain rights and numbers of downpipes, then if they have breached this then you have a potential case. If it is silent on this or doesn't list numbers then you probably don't as you still have flow of water off your property.

2. Quite probably but the whole reason the HA were replacing the guttering is because concrete guttering was a bad idea in the first place and by now its pretty much all leaking and failing. Its going to be hard work proving that water ingress is now worse than it was before because of the changes rather than just because the guttering is now older and therefore failing more.

3. In reality all they may have done is dislodged already failing "grout" in the joints - any losses you could claim for this is going to be very minimal.

4. Planning regs - almost certainly not. Building regs - probably going to be a grey area if they have, because they technically haven't worked on your property so the work they have done on their property could probably be signed off as building regs compliant without reference to its impact on your property, however as the council will be independant of the HA you could always ask its building regs department for advice.


All that said - you accused them of trying to be clever by leaving the erroneous section - I would say you and your neighbours were trying to be clever and force them unfairly to pay for all your work when they already agreed to do half of it for free. Your decisions were probably poor - you had the chance to get the work done whilst they had contractors on site, had scaffolding available etc, and refused trying to be greedy. You are now left with failing guttering that none of you can replace without the others, and over time the failure is only going to get worse and cause other problems. The moneysaving thing to do at the time would have been to take their reasonable offer - trying to be clever and get it done for even more discount or free has backfired. It would be interesting to get a quote from an independant supplier to do the work now for the 3 houses and see how that compares to what the HA offered to do it for. I'd be surprised if the HA price wasn't good value.

But that is part of the problem, they didn't offer a price to do the work. It would obviously have been easier to do the whole terrace at once, but this was never an available option. We had asked for a price but they never offered one.

iamcornholio

itscheapandiwantit wrote: »

1. The council have removed use of 1 of the 2 downpipes available to the guttering system of 3 private houses. Is this allowed?

2. This has increased the flow of water to the only available downpipe and this is causing water ingress problems.

3. Renewing guttering next door to me and drilling a large bore hole may have through vibration, damaged my guttering, Can I reasonably prove this?

4. I am wondering if they have breached planning regs or building regs with the work they have done.

1 and 2 - With a terrace block, each homeowner has an implied right to the discharge of their rainwater from the gutter. Removal of a downpipe may deny such use, or it may be that existing other downpipes can cope. If the removal causes problems to an owners property, then the redress would be via a civil claim in the county court. Typically removing one downpipe may not matter if there are others, but you would not be permitted to remove a single downpipe if it was the only one to serve other properties. You need to monitor the situation after heavy rain to see how the gutters cope

3 - If you can see physical damage, or demonstrate otherwise that your gutters have been detrimentally affected, then you can insist on a repair/claim compensation due to negligence. "May have" caused vibration is a difficult one to substantiate - even on a balance of probabilities, you would have to show some damage and not rely on a "might do"

4 - altering gutters can require a b/regs application in certain circumstances, but the fact that replacement gutters are being put back, and by all accounts the work does seem acceptable in terms of performance, then there would be no mileage in this.
Some properties or areas with finlock gutters may have a general restriction to prevent removal under planning regualtions, but unless you are in a designated "special" area then there may be no restrictions on removing the existing gutters. I would assume that the council has checked this all out