Leaking chimney stack shared with social housing

aleggsmac

Hi all.

New to the forum, but have seen similar problems posted here with good suggestions, so thought I may give it a try. This is a long-ish story, but we would really appreciate some advice.

We bought our terraced house in September 2017, and in August this year we found a leak. We got our roofer to take a look, and he said it was due to the chimney stack we share with our neighbour - it was in poor condition, and as there was no use for it anymore, our roofer recommended we take it down.

Next-door is a housing association property, and so we phoned the housing association. They told us that we weren't allowed to take it down until THEY had sent someone around to look, got a variety of quotes and liability insurance, and then they would maybe do the job. We were told this would take some time. The leak was pretty bad (going down through the wall, coming out of a plug socket and then also going down into the kitchen below) and so we were desperate to sort it. We even offered to foot the entire bill and not have any input from the association, but they still told us no. Instead, the best our roofer said he could do was repoint it and redo all the lead around it, which we had to opt for.

This was all fine, until a few days ago when we noticed the leak reappear (albeit not as bad). Our side should technically be water tight, and has been through some pretty bad weather until now. We're having our roofer around this week to check, but we're almost certain that it is our neighbour's side of the chimney that is causing an issue in our house. Their chimney has moss growing out of it, and sections of cement between the bricks missing. We've since phoned the association again, and even though they were meant to follow our complaint up in August, they have done nothing about it. We are now being told that roofers are being booked in to look at their houses next year and they will get back to us.

We are appalled that they have a total disregard for us when it is their property causing the issue. As buyers, it feels really unfair to have to wait to be able to do anything to our own house, and to be shelling out £££ for a problem that may not be ours.

Does anybody have any advice with how we can proceed? Is there anything legally we can do to force the association's hand so to speak? If we were to go ahead, or ask for permission again, how can we protect ourselves from them?

We were all set to redecorate after the summer leak, and now we're going to have to wait even longer :mad:. We're going to keep on at the association, but any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

eddddy

aleggsmac wrote: »

Does anybody have any advice with how we can proceed? Is there anything legally we can do to force the association's hand so to speak? If we were to go ahead, or ask for permission again, how can we protect ourselves from them?

Tell the HA formally that their part of the chimney is leaking and causing damage to your property.

(Perhaps you feel that you have already done this in your phone call - but reinforce it in writing.)

They should then take 'reasonable' action to prevent further damage to your property. If they don't they would be negligent, and you could claim damages from them - e.g. the cost of repairing further damage since you informed them.


As a starting point, you can warn them that you will claim damages for negligence, if they don't get the problem sorted quickly. It might hurry them up.


However, if you did end up claiming from them, I suspect that there would be lots of arguments about what constitutes 'reasonable' action (and therefore negligence).

AlexMac

I don't know the legal position...

(hopefully someone else will know if it's worth quantifying the cost of the damage to you and sending a letter(s) before court action, based on recovering your losses- presumably the abortive partial fix by your competent roofer, plus the fact that after wasting money on this, you might end up remving the stack overall...)

... but before that, and as Housing Associations are mainly well-intentioned charities or quasi-public bodies...

How about escalating the complaint? They will have a Complaints procedure, so, ask for a copy after reminding them that the delay is unacceptable as it's damaging your property and you've pointed this out several times. Then register a formal compalint within their process.

And then, subject to the outcome, go to the top- their CEO will be accountable to a board of trustees, equivalent to the Non Exec Directors in a PLC; get detail from Companies House or the Charieties Commission. And write to them..

Or, as they may genuinely be under pressure fixing priority problems for their social tenant, just put up with the fact you'll have to redecorate a few times after they eventually fix it- I once negotiated in a friendly way with a similar Social Landolord when the wall between our properties blew down; they paid for the materials and I repalced it with a fence; pretty resonable as ownership was unl=celar (it might have even been my wall) and it was really my trellis and creeper whose wnd resistance brought it down!

aleggsmac

Thanks for the advice both - at the moment the damage seems to be cosmetic, but if it carries on and the plaster gets compromised then we're going to have to also fork out for that. Our roofer says he has photos of the work he did, before and after, and this week will take some more. He's going to check it definitely isn't our chimney at fault, but considering the quality of other work he's done for us, I'm willing to bet that the preventative work he did before is still watertight.

We're definitely going to get a written complaint going - it's all too easy for them to 'forget' phone calls ever existed. We're currently waiting for a call back from the HA manager for our area, but who knows how helpful that will be. Overall they just seem wholly unconcerned for our situation, which is really frustrating for us considering we're willing to foot the bill just to stop our house getting damaged.

We don't really care for going after them tooth and nail in a court or anything - I don't care for a big payout or any kind of money. We just want them to take the issue seriously, and if we can push them harder by knowing our rights so to speak, then it strengthens our position in getting it done!

AdrianC

Have a read of this...
https://www.gov.uk/party-walls-building-works/if-you-cant-agree

EachPenny

AlexMac wrote: »

Or, as they may genuinely be under pressure fixing priority problems for their social tenant, just put up with the fact you'll have to redecorate a few times after they eventually fix it....

I would say that fixing a leaking roof is one of the very highest priorities. The leak could be causing damage to the structure as well as to the decoration. An asset they own is being allowed to deteriorate through their neglect of maintenance responsibilities. There is also a safety aspect if water is getting into the electrical system.

If the HA property also requires redecoration - possibly replastering - as a result of not sorting a simple roof problem out sooner, then they (and ultimately probably the taxpayer) will incur additional unnecessary costs.

AlexMac wrote: »

How about escalating the complaint? They will have a Complaints procedure, so, ask for a copy after reminding them that the delay is unacceptable as it's damaging your property and you've pointed this out several times. Then register a formal compalint within their process.

I agree with this - OP, check the HA's website for a copy of their complaints process. Also (if you don't already know) find out about their structure and their relationship to the local council.

Rather than having to go to court to get redress, you may be able to use the Ombudsman service. For this you'll need to first exhaust the HA's complaints process, but if that happens and you don't have a satisfactory outcome, then you can complain to the Ombudsman.

Personally, before starting the complaints process with the HA I would confirm whether this is something which falls under the remit of the Local Government Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman. You are being affected as a private owner of a neighbouring property, so it may be a LGO issue. I would phone the LGO and explain the situation in broad terms (mention neglect of their maintenance duties) and ask for confirmation of which service would be appropriate if you are unable to get the HA to resolve your complaint.

The reason for this is in your complaint to the HA you should state clearly that if the issue is not resolved to your satisfaction you will be taking your complaint to the (insert correct name) Ombudsman. This makes it clear to the HA complaint handler that you know what you are talking about, and if you've made the effort to find that out then you are more likely to take it all the way if necessary.

You should also find out the name and email address of the HA's Chief Executive. Their complaints system will probably be designed to encourage you to submit the complaint online, in the same way their tenants would complain if their hot water hadn't been working for more than a day. You need to bypass that, and ideally submit your complaint in the form of an email to their complaints email address, with a copy sent to the Chief Executive. On the subject line of the email, and as a heading above the text, identify that it is a complaint about damage to your privately owned home. E.g. -
"COMPLAINT - Damage to third party property due to leaking roof"

Also, if you haven't done it already, take photos showing the damage now, both internally and of the chimney outside. You need evidence to show that the damage is increasing with time, and that the chimney is the probable cause.

If possible, ask your roofer to take some close-up pictures of the chimney for you when he comes this week. You might want to attach one of these to your complaint email if it is as bad as you say.

HampshireH

Have you popped round to see the neighbour? Chances are they too are experiencing issues if you are from their side.

May assist you if you can see from their side its causing the problem.

aleggsmac

So we finally got through to the area manager, who wouldn't take our calls until we mentioned the ombudsman (funny that...) and he admitted he dropped the ball on it in the summer (apparently he referred it to a party wall expert in the association, who then left his job and the area manager never followed it up).

They're now going to get back to us tomorrow with a decision on whether we have permission to take it down or not. We've requested it be written and not hold us liable, but we'll see what they come up with. We're drafting a complaints letter tonight - initially it seemed the only way to complain was through an online form, but I've found a PDF of their complaints procedure and that we can escalate it to a 'second level' complaint if it's not been dealt with in the first instance (as it wasn't in August).

Will have a read of that AdrianC - I knew about party walls in general, but not the legal issues. If the neighbour was privately owned and rented, it would be so easy to sort, but I think as it's HA it's going to be difficult!!

EachPenny - thanks for the advice RE: Ombudsman. We've mentioned it on the phone, but will make sure we refer to the right one in the complaints letter. Will also look into the Chief Executive route, as at the moment the only easy way to complain is via the online form, which won't reach the right people I imagine. We've got photos of the roof from when it was repaired in the summer, and we have photos of the inside too. Our roofer has been excellent with all our other repairs, and so we don't think it is his work - he would be honest though, as he seems quite work-proud. He said he would take more photos for us this week too.

We've asked the neighbours if they are having any issues, and they said they aren't....we aren't sure how true that is though, and our roofer said they must be having issues, with the state their side of the chimney is in. Either they're oblivious (it's their bathroom that would be leaking) and think it's okay, or they just don't care?

We've got a quote for the removal which we will relay to the HA. At this point, we would rather pay for it all to be removed, with no input from the HA, than wait around for them to finally get it sorted. We just don't want to have them turning around and blaming us for anything as a result of the removal.

EachPenny

aleggsmac wrote: »

We've asked the neighbours if they are having any issues, and they said they aren't....we aren't sure how true that is though, and our roofer said they must be having issues, with the state their side of the chimney is in. Either they're oblivious (it's their bathroom that would be leaking) and think it's okay, or they just don't care?

Possibly any damage is hidden behind tiling?

aleggsmac wrote: »

We've got a quote for the removal which we will relay to the HA. At this point, we would rather pay for it all to be removed, with no input from the HA, than wait around for them to finally get it sorted. We just don't want to have them turning around and blaming us for anything as a result of the removal.

Two words of caution on this... firstly make sure that the HA take responsibility for ensuring the neighbour understands the chimney is being de-commissioned and that the HA will be carrying out work inside the property to prevent any fires/back boilers from being used. A future occupant or guest might not know the chimney stack has been demolished and could attempt to light a fire if there is still some kind of fireplace.

Secondly, during the demolition work, there is a risk of rubble falling down the chimney. Unless the fireplaces have been solidly bricked up there is a risk of this rubble coming out into the neighbours rooms and creating a lot of mess. Whoever you get to do the work needs to inspect the chimney inside the neighbour's house and use dust sheets (or something similar) to make sure that anything that does fall doesn't do any damage or send soot flying out everywhere.

AdrianC

aleggsmac wrote: »

If the neighbour was privately owned and rented, it would be so easy to sort, but I think as it's HA it's going to be difficult!!

It's impossible to generalise.

An individual landlord may well be perfectly easy to deal with - or may be a shonky shyster trying to spend as little as possible.

At least with a HA you know they're going to be a certain size, and you know that they're going to have staff dealing with a certain amount of personal detachment.

aleggsmac

I agree that the damage could be hidden behind tiling, I don't know how their bathroom is decorated, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was hidden behind tiles, or in the corner where a shower is etc. The chimney is blocked up in my property, and I'm almost certain that in conversation with our neighbour, my partner found out theirs is too. The chimney is at the back of the house, where both our kitchens are. I suspect it was there from 'the olden days' when houses needed fireplaces. It has no real use nowadays anyway, as it isn't a convenient place to have a fashionable log burner! We will definitely keep this in mind in further correspondence though, EachPenny.

Yesterday we finally got confirmation that it will be discussed in a meeting today. We want it totally removed, but the person on the phone seemed to suggest it may be left and repointed, to be 'in keeping with the house and the street'?! We've looked, and not one house still has this ancient remnant of days gone by, so hopefully that will not be the case. They even said that if it crumbled and fell, they may opt to rebuild which seems ridiculous!

We have now written a formal, second tier complaint as per the HA's guidance on complaints. This is the step before Ombudsman, which we've mentioned on the phone and also in writing. We've laid out what we think is an acceptable conclusion (removal of the stack), and said that we aren't budging on this as nothing else will guarantee safety and a water tight property. We also CC'd the Chief Executive, who has already responded and forwarded it onwards.

It seems so ridiculous that you can buy your own house, yet still be tied down to legal rubbish like this!!

AdrianC - perhaps that true, fingers crossed now that we've elevated it, it will get sorted