Disappeared Downstairs Neighbour

Jenny_Han

I hope someone can give me some advice. We are very frustrated and helpless.
Our flat is the first floor flat 50/50 sharing freehold with the ground floor flat neighbour guy. The neighbour lives on his own abroad, rarely comes back to his flat. The last time he was back was about a year ago. The flat is left in a shocking state. Lots of weed, loose soil in his garden. Roof is falling into pieces. The flat stinks, smells damp, probably has mice. We can hear something running in the wall. Even when he was around in the past, he didn't associate with any of our neighbours, didn't answer his door, avoided neighbours, refused to share his contact details with any of us.
Our shared drainage was blocked recently. It is located in his garden. We had no choice but getting a ladder through our window to get in his garden to unblock the drainage before it floods everywhere.
Things like these worry me. We shared our concern with the council. However, the council can't do anything about this.
What shall we do moving forward? Is there a way to find him? If we ever want to sell our flat in the near future, what do we do if we can't reach him?
Many Thanks

lincroft1710

Even if you could contact him, he would probably just ignore you.

There is a scenario in which a council may take possession of a property if the owner is absent and it is falling into disrepair.

davidmcn

Jenny_Han wrote: »

Is there a way to find him?

You could try instructing a tracing agent. May be tricky depending on how vague "abroad" actually is and what other connections he has with the UK.

oystercatcher

Find some respectable squatters to come and live there and sort the place out ?

AnotherJoe

Contact a solicitor. You may have to take some type of legal action.

Might be covered under your house insurance perhaps?
Whats happening for buildings insurance? Is he paying that?

Rosemary7391

Have you checked what address is held with the land registry? Slim chance it might be updated... but in the absence of better information, that's probably the place you'd serve any notices. I don't know if you can just serve notice and get any joint repairs done? And chase him for the money later?

ManofLeisure_2

Are you ''absolutely'' certain that he isn't actually in the flat at the moment (bid morbid I know). He sounds a bit of an enigma, so keeping tabs on whether he's away living abroad or actually at his flat would probably be difficult - hence the question. What made me think along these lines was your reference to the place stinking. The place might ''always'' stink of course. Anyway, just a thought.

xylophone

Roof is falling into pieces.

You share the freehold and responsibility for repairing the roof/common parts?

Is there also a lease?

What are your legal obligations to each other?

have you taken the advice of a solicitor?

Jenny_Han

oystercatcher wrote: »

Find some respectable squatters to come and live there and sort the place out ?

Thank you for the advice. I am not sure we will go down that route though he has been very irresponsible.

Jenny_Han

oystercatcher wrote: »

Find some respectable squatters to come and live there and sort the place out ?

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Contact a solicitor. You may have to take some type of legal action.

Might be covered under your house insurance perhaps?
Whats happening for buildings insurance? Is he paying that?

Thank you Joe. Actually, we are paying for the building insurance requested by our bank as part of the mortgage condition. I believe the neighbour has nothing in place. According to a lady who lives on this street for over 20 year, the flat was bought in cash by my downstairs' grandma before she passed away. She also left him some money to live. She adopted him since he was little. I believe an investment company is managing his money as a gentlemen from an investment company knocked on our door, trying to find him to inform him that he has some income. We've never seen anyone coming to his place. He is too embarrassed to open the door even for utility companies. I guess he takes his investment return living abroad comfortably, leaving his flat dis-repaired. He didn't pay for the flat. Perhaps that's why he doesn't care.

Jenny_Han

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Have you checked what address is held with the land registry? Slim chance it might be updated... but in the absence of better information, that's probably the place you'd serve any notices. I don't know if you can just serve notice and get any joint repairs done? And chase him for the money later?

Thank you Rosemary. We checked with our solicitor already. This is his address on land registry. As it's an old house, the lease document wasn't done properly. Our solicitor suggested us to re-write the lease to make our responsibilities clearer. The thing is we can't find him. Even we catch him for a second, he will not communicate as always. The revised lease doesn't come cheaply. At the moment, we are not even thinking about recovering the drainage unblock charge from him. Just need to find him in case more issues arise. And we'd like to try to sell the flat in next a couple of years, I can imagine it will be a nightmare.