Water leak

nofoollikeold

1. By law the landlord must provide a UK contact address on the Assured Shorthold Tenancy document.  
2. I'd suggest you write an old fashioned letter to that address pointing out the problem and your previous attempts to notify the landlord of the problem.  Send the letter from a Post Office and get a "Proof of Posting" slip.
3. Nothing to do with the overflow, but if you have been there 12 years, you would presumably given a deposit of 6 weeks rent.  This was reduced to 5 weeks two or three years ago, and the landlord should have paid back the one week's deposit.  Hope he / she has done so.

molerat

As above send a letter to the "address for serving notices" in your contract pointing out that there is a risk of the leak causing damp and structural damage.

2 pipes like that high up will likely be one for the cold water tank and one for the f&e tank for the heating, surprised they are both the same size though, usually one large and one small.  The danger is if there is a freeze the pipe will block and the overflow will be into the property.

Another_Level

Hope it gets sorted out soon, really do. Have known where long term tenants have to carry out repairs due to their own wear & tear. Yes its not known, there is history  tenancies vary

Others will edit & disagree but they are not the tenant or landlord.

Have been asked so many times to carry out basic repairs in tenanted properties by the tenants, having got into discussion with the tenant it was kind of obvious why they have to pay or vacate.

Really hope the water fall gets sorted out very soon, 

edit spellspill

plumb1_2

Contact your Utility company they might do a free fix? Or they can contact the LL 

JohnB47

You might want to watch out for the water on those flag stones freezing during the winter. Could make it very dangerous to step out onto.

Sallywin

Thank you all. I know all the legalities around tenancy and repairs. All I wanted to know was whether I'm in any danger or risk of flooding, tank bursting or whatever there might be. Since I'm not, I'll continue sleeping like a baby 🙂

Section62

Sallywin said:

....All I wanted to know was whether I'm in any danger or risk of flooding, tank bursting or whatever there might be.  Since I'm not, I'll continue sleeping like a baby 🙂

You potentially are though. (see my previous post)

Those pipes shouldn't be discharging water in normal circumstances - water coming out of them means something is wrong with the plumbing system, and for this reason 'overflow' pipes are sometimes referred to as 'warning pipes'.

Your plumbing system is telling you there is something wrong which needs fixing.  Ignore it, and the problem could get worse.

For example, as molerat says, if the warning pipe freezes in the Winter it will be unable to safely discharge water from whatever it is that isn't working properly.  And if the water cannot get out via that route, it will find another way - which could be through the ceiling and the rooms below.

Get the landlord to fix it before your own property gets damaged, even if you don't care about his.