Council tenant above regularly flooding our property!

Council tenant above regularly flooding our property!

by Readers Question

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0:01 AM, 4th June 2024, About a month ago 13

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Hi, we have a BTL in an ex-local authority building where the council is the Freeholder. Since 2019 there have been spates of water ingress/floods from the bathroom of flat above culminating in 7 floods through our bathroom ceiling in the last 5 weeks.

The flat above houses a single mother who is a council tenant with documented mental health issues. She is completely in denial that the water is coming from her flat. She is gifted at denying the council access to assess and they don’t seem to be trying too hard anyway.

Nonetheless the council has now tested all of the pipes and drains and confirmed that there is no damage that would cause a leak. I.e. it’s something the tenant is doing. The council have now stated they will take the lady down the route of cautioning her for anti-social behaviour (ASB). Realistically the process will take a long time and is very unlikely to result in an eviction.

This route was taken before and she was well-behaved for long enough for her record to time-out before starting again.

My strong suspicion is that the council has no interest in solving the problem because it is too much of a hornets nest for them. For example, if they move her somewhere else they will just get similar complaints from her new neighbours.

To that end I suspect that the council are giving us the runaround. First it is, ‘show us photos & videos’. Then, it’s ‘we sent someone but she wouldn’t open the door’. Then, ‘well we finally got in but we couldn’t see a problem’. Now it’s, ‘we have to catch her in the act of whatever she is doing so ring as soon as the flood starts’.

Our tenants are great and have photographed and taken live videos and we have been straight on to the council who don’t send someone immediately (it’s usually out of hours and often when our tenants are all out).

My suspicion is that the council are diverting us down a long fruitless path to distract us from figuring out the way to make them do something that is difficult for them.

My first question, what is the correct means of forcing the council to do their job as Freeholder? If it is a legal route can someone recommend a solicitor specialising in this? Not looking to sue for money but stop the problem once and for all.

My second question, the buildings insurance will only make repairs once the underlying issue has been resolved. In the past we just paid out of our own pocket to put things right for the tenants quickly rather than go down that rabbit hole. Then the council stated that putting in the claim will expedite things.

They determined that there was a leak in the upstairs kitchen that they then fixed which allowed their insurer to proceed. The kitchen is several rooms away from the bathroom but whatever that redecoration and our subsequent one is now ruined again. Will the insurance claim be put on hold because of the ASBO process?

Thanks,

Darren


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Comments

Jim K

18:03 PM, 7th June 2024, About 4 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by Steve Riley-Snelling at 04/06/2024 - 13:57
Very thanks.
My experience was 5 separate 'front doors' wooden fire doors broken down and a plastic front of the building door.
A good £3K.

PETER harvey

12:17 PM, 26th June 2024, About A week ago

Reply to the comment left by Tim Peters at 04/06/2024 - 09:47
had the same problem in a house i rented to the council via a manging agent. the tenant used to let her children play in the bath unsupervised for hours and they repeated pulled off the silicone around the edges and caused numerous leaks. all denied by the tenant - managing agents repaired it free of charge on a few occasions but eventually i had her evicted over other issues.

ph

PETER harvey

12:18 PM, 26th June 2024, About A week ago

had the same problem in a house i rented to the council via a manging agent. the tenant used to let her children play in the bath unsupervised for hours and they repeated pulled off the silicone around the edges and caused numerous leaks. all denied by the tenant - managing agents repaired it free of charge on a few occasions but eventually i had her evicted over other issues.

could be the children doing it

ph

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