Help Needed Re: water damage.

briggco246

A bit of a long story so apologies for that, so here goes.


Over the last few days I've had water !!!!ing in through my bathroom ceiling light-fitting. Turns out it was coming from the flat upstairs. The outside rwp was blocked at high level, just below the floor level of the upstairs flat. The water built up, backed up the ladies water pipe, into her shower tray, filled the shower tray, overflowed onto her bathroom floor, down through that to sit above my ceiling.


I had to take the damaged light fitting off & poke holes all over my ceiling for the water to drip down through in to my bath & several buckets I had waiting.


What I would like to know is who is responsible for getting my ceiling fixed. Would it be through her & her insurance or through my own?


Actually that wasn't a long story at all.


Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Guest101

I'd suggest it was the freeholder / management company as it was an outside drain which blocked.

briggco246

there is no management company as we own every part of the building including external walls & pipes.

Guest101

briggco246 wrote: »

there is no management company as we own every part of the building including external walls & pipes.

Who's we?


Need to be clearer

briggco246

Guest101 wrote: »

Who's we?


Need to be clearer

sorry.


I live in a bottom floor flat, there are four of the same flats, 2 downstairs & 2 upstairs, so a block of 4. I don't know about the two next door, but I do know that neither myself, nor my upstairs neighbour have a landlord or anyone that looks after the externals of the building, everything belongs to us.

Guest101

briggco246 wrote: »

sorry.


I live in a bottom floor flat, there are four of the same flats, 2 downstairs & 2 upstairs, so a block of 4. I don't know about the two next door, but I do know that neither myself, nor my upstairs neighbour have a landlord or anyone that looks after the externals of the building, everything belongs to us.

Ok so let's assume you each have a share of freehold.


That means there are four owners of the building. Have you not set up (and this will be a tough lesson now I suspect) a company to manage the freehold. IE to purchase building insurance, to maintain a sinking fund, to provide regular cleaning and maintain common areas?


It sounds like the cost will need to be split between the four owners.

briggco246

we don't have a common entry, we each have our own separate entrance door. Imagine 4 houses stuck together into a block. We have our own gardens, our own front doors, nothing is common.

Guest101

briggco246 wrote: »

we don't have a common entry, we each have our own separate entrance door. Imagine 4 houses stuck together into a block. We have our own gardens, our own front doors, nothing is common.

Can you give a street view of this. It doesn't make much sense.


But that aside, you do have common areas, you each sound like you have a share of the building.


Hypothetically who would pay for a new roof?

briggco246

i've tried to post a picture but as i'm a "new user" I'm not allowed.

G_M

Who owns the land on which the properties sit? If one flat is on top of another, they both sit on the same land.

And they both use the same foundations. and roof.

So who owns this?

Is this England or Scotland (or.....)?

Is your flat leasehold? If you are not sure, look it up on the land registry site here and pay £3 to find the owners of:

a) the leases
b) the freehold

If your flat is leasehold, find the lease and read it.

briggco246

The people who own the top floor flats are responsible for the roof. Which is why I didn't buy a top floor flat, in the same street when one came up.




This is in Scotland