Local Authority working on private houses, advice please.

MetInOz

My local authority are are currently replacing old concrete gutters with plastic ones on all the homes on our estate. Many of the properties are council owned but some are privately owned. So far the council have done this work on private properties too even if they are not attached to a council property in some cases.
I own my own home and the work has not been done on our property. The Council have informed me over the telephone that they will not be doing this work on my home as they are only doing private homes that are attached to a council property by a gutterline. When I informed the person that they have completed the work on private properties not attached to their own properties then he just said that it must have been an oversight.
I know that the council have no obligation to complete any work on a private home but feel a little miffed that other privately owned homes have had this work done. Probably nothing I can do about this but if anyone has any thoughts or advice on the matter then I would appreciate it.
Thanks for reading.

Rain_Shadow

MetInOz wrote: »

I know that the council have no obligation to complete any work on a private home but feel a little miffed that other privately owned homes have had this work done. Probably nothing I can do about this but if anyone has any thoughts or advice on the matter then I would appreciate it.
Thanks for reading.

Stop woryying about it. Sadly life isn't fair.

System

take some tea and biscuits out to the workies and ask if they fancy a wee homer...

DirectDebacle

Probably nothing I can do about this but if anyone has any thoughts or advice on the matter then I would appreciate it.

But there is.

Obviously you are displeased that council inefficiency has caused public money to be wasted on private housing. I expect had the council tried to improve your property you would have immediately stopped it and quite right too.

The beauty of living in a democracy is that you can raise the matter with your local councillor. Request that the council bill the homeowners whose properties have been erroneously improved, for the cost of the work or ask if their council tax band can be raised as an alternative to recouping the money.

Put posters up on lamposts to inform the rest of your estate of your public spirited intentions and name and shame the householders you believe have benefitted from a 'freebie'.

HTH:D

Torry_Quine

I would have expected the private owners to be paying for the work to be done.

DaftyDuck

Get a ladder out and rip all the old guttering off your house overnight, leave it in a heap in the drive. Next day, when the workmen start on a new house, shout, "Oi you, what are you doing starting a new job when you haven't finished the one you started yesterday. Get over here and do it NOW!!!". I'm sure they'll pop over and do an excellent job finishing you off.

freddykrueger

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Get a ladder out and rip all the old guttering off your house overnight, leave it in a heap in the drive. Next day, when the workmen start on a new house, shout, "Oi you, what are you doing starting a new job when you haven't finished the one you started yesterday. Get over here and do it NOW!!!". I'm sure they'll pop over and do an excellent job finishing you off.

That does make them sound like local authority murderers.....:rotfl:

carefullycautious

If I owned my own local authority house and I knew that workmen were going to replace the guttering I would ask if I could pay them to do mine also. The same with boiler servicing etc. How do you know that these private home owners aren't doing the same.

It would be in my interest to keep my property up to date with repairs etc

ed110220

carefullycautious wrote: »

If I owned my own local authority house and I knew that workmen were going to replace the guttering I would ask if I could pay them to do mine also. The same with boiler servicing etc. How do you know that these private home owners aren't doing the same.

It would be in my interest to keep my property up to date with repairs etc

Indeed, you may get it done at a better rate than normal if they are doing many at a time.

Around here the council replaced all the asbestos roofs of their houses before transferring them to a housing association. Where one of a semidetached pair was owned by the council and the other privately, in some cases the private owners paid to have theirs done at the same time. You can of course see where this was done as the roof is continuous with no join or change of colour between the houses.

Would it not be better to see if you can get your gutters done at a good price while they are doing them rather than being annoyed that some people got theirs done free of charge because the council made a mistake?

That is if the gutters really need replacing - here the HA has done a lot of things that I think would be unnecessary and even ugly on a privately-owned house just to make them low-maintenance.