Leasehold low quality maintenance

roncos

I own a leasehold apartment. The management company also owns the building freehold. No ground rent, just management fees and maintenance costs.

My problem is that the roof leaks repeatedly in one particular spot. Once or twice a year for the last several years whenever there is consistently heavy rain one room gets wet, same spot each time.

The management company sends in a roof maintenance company to do repairs and then happily pays them from the leaseholders maintenance funds without checking the work. The leak only happens when there is extended periods of heavy rain, possibly requiring certain wind conditions as well to drive the water in, as a result it seems fixed for a few weeks after the repair but then eventually reoccurs. I am convinced that the repairs done are substandard, well it is completely clear they are substandard since the leak reoccurs at exactly the same place many times.

What are the professional actions that the management company should be doing to verify the repairs are of the required quality?

eddddy

Perhaps the way to approach it is like this:

The law protects leaseholders - for example, it says that work paid for through service charges must be done to a reasonable standard.

Here's the relevant extract from the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985:

19 Limitation of service charges: reasonableness.

• (1) Relevant costs shall be taken into account in determining the amount of a service charge payable for a period—

• (a) only to the extent that they are reasonably incurred, and

• (b) where they are incurred on the provision of services or the carrying out of works, only if the services or works are of a reasonable standard;

and the amount payable shall be limited accordingly.

Link: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/70/crossheading/service-charges

So you can say to the management company that you don't think the work has been done to a reasonable standard, so you want it excluded from the service charge, and if they refuse to exclude it you will challenge the service charge amount at a tribunal.

The threat of a tribunal might make the management company check future repairs more carefully, or....

...you might actually want to pay a £100 fee to take it to tribunal. A tribunal is like a court, so you would have to gather evidence - like photos of the leak, a statement of what has happened, etc.

Here's quite a detailed article about service charges, the need for them to be reasonable, and going to tribunal:   https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/service-charges-other-issues/