Reply to: Water leak...should landlord pay?

[~Craig~]

Or replace cubicle, remove tiles, seal wall and re-tile. (Yes)

Suggest the 2nd option - similar thing happened to a flat of mine and did the same. Otherwise it'll happen again (and again). Is there a carpet round it? If so, place a couple of spare bits of similar carpet round the cubicle to soak up any excess water that may be dribbling out of it.

thanks DJ. Yes there is carpet but it's not wet at all. It looks to be going directly down the wall or through the floor.

Coincidentaly We did have a problem with damp on the same wall on the other side of the glass screen. I assumed it was the just coming through between the screen and the wall and just resealed it.....perhaps it was coming through the tiles all along.....

[Dow Jones]

Do it properly

Or replace cubicle, remove tiles, seal wall and re-tile. (Yes)

Suggest the 2nd option - similar thing happened to a flat of mine and did the same. Otherwise it'll happen again (and again). Is there a carpet round it? If so, place a couple of spare bits of similar carpet round the cubicle to soak up any excess water that may be dribbling out of it.

[~Craig~]

right i've had a good look at the flat below and it looks like (due to position) that the water is coming from the shower cubicle above.

The bathroom is rectangular and has a single brick partition wall about half way along (1/3 width of room) which creates a corner for the shower unit.

It's a failry old town house style and some of the walls are a bit carp and crumbly. From looking under the shower there doesn't seem to be any leak but the brickwork does look a bit damp. The management co. are saying that I'm responsible for the pipework; probably right as it's not shared....

I think it must be coming from either:

1. Pipework under shower.
2. Through the grout, onto wall and down.
3. Through roof, and down wall. Probably less likely....

I now don't know whether to call a plumber out and probably pay £90 quid to fix...if it's a pipe.

Or replace cubicle, remove tiles, seal wall and re-tile. Whole unit is a bit carp anyway but I don't want to spend much if i'm selling it.

Any ideas on prices for this?

[Ardesco]

IIRC The threshold for voting them out is lower than for enfranchisement.

tim

Depends, if you are living in a development that has say 200 flats spread across 6 buildings, you could club together to buy the freehold for 1 building if the other 5 buildings all voted to kep the current management company.

Then again it's all acedemic, I wouldn't bother anyway. If it's that bad just sell

[tim123]

Yes you can vote the management company out of the loop, but if you don't have enough votes to do it, it is another way around it.

IIRC The threshold for voting them out is lower than for enfranchisement.

tim

[Ardesco]

Not quite

1) you have to buy the whole block, you can't buy out half the block.
2) you don't need to buy the freehold to oust the MA, owners can vote them out regardless.
3) It *is* worth doing if the property only has a short amount of time left on the lease and you would otherwise need to extend it to be able to sell the property. Perversely, buying out the whole block costs less than each owner extending.

tim

I'm sure you can do it by floor. So if you have a building that has 3 floors and 4 flats per floor if you gand together with everybody else on your floor you can buy the freehold for that floor. (I looked into it a few years back when we bought our flat.

You can't just buy the freehold for your individual flat you would need to group together with other leasehold owners.

Yes you can vote the management company out of the loop, but if you don't have enough votes to do it, it is another way around it.

[sasguru]

Plus he wanted someone to feel superior to intellectually and the peasants of CZ were about the only ones he found. Oh yes, milan feels quite the lord as he putters around in his diesel Passat.

[shaunbhoy]

call me old fashioned I'd rather have good old fashioned freehold and be done with it



Milan.

Of course you would milan, and that is of course why you have chosen to live in the back of beyond surrounded by cabbages and cattle. That being the only way you can afford a mortgage on a freehold place on a tape-swapper's salary.

[tim123]

if a landlord rents to a private foreigner then the foreigner has a right to go to the council rents office and get them to confirm the rental being paid is the correct amount for that apartment/area

Anybody has that right. It isn't just restricted to foreigners. I don't know, (I'll see if I can find out) but I suspect that even with a company let the rent can be challenged. The 'fair rent' rules are directed directly towards owners, they aren't 'tenants rights'.

tim

[tim123]

Flats are rarely freehold because of the building maintenance issues. This being said after a set number of years you can club together with everybody else on the same floor as you and buy the freehold between you. Only worth doing if you and a bunch of people you know want to oust the management company by buying up the existing freeholds.

Not quite

1) you have to buy the whole block, you can't buy out half the block.
2) you don't need to buy the freehold to oust the MA, owners can vote them out regardless.
3) It *is* worth doing if the property only has a short amount of time left on the lease and you would otherwise need to extend it to be able to sell the property. Perversely, buying out the whole block costs less than each owner extending.

tim

[milanbenes]

I can tell you Tim,

sweden is a totally different kettle of fish to anything I have seen before, it is impossible for a private foreigner to rent an apartment in sweden

the reason being, if a landlord rents to a private foreigner then the foreigner has a right to go to the council rents office and get them to confirm the rental being paid is the correct amount for that apartment/area

and the landlords want to get more money, so they only rent to foreigners where a company is signed on the rental agreement

anyway back to these 99 year leases, for me it is still a little complicated and being one who likes to keep things simple (and don't you start Sas) I prefer the freehold

Milan.

[tim123]

'My property is mortgaged but the leasehold for both properties is owned by the same landlord. ',


can someone please explain to me what this means as I've never understood it

Person A owns the freehold

and then

Person B (craig) takes a mortgage to buy a kind of one off 99 year rental payment to Person A for the dwelling for 99 years ?

What happens if you sell after 20 years ?

This is very confusing, please explain.

Milan.

There's only 79 years left on the lease. (how is 99-20 so hard?)

Your explaination above is not quite right as it's: "a kind of, one off payment to Person A, for the 99 year right to rent the property at a stated rent for 99 years".

The rents are normally exceptionally low and thus this "right to rent" is quite valuable, to the extent that it is close to a similar freehold house, and can be sold on.

As someone else has said, the terms of the lease can be renegotiated within a statutory framework (for payment), so that, in practice, the lease never has to expire.

This method of 'selling' "rights to rent" is absolutely normal in commercial property, where rents aren't even low, and is probably used for such in CZ.

They have much the same thing in Sweden, except that rents aren't low and the term is open ended. There, the value of the 'right to rent' is still quite high because long term rental is so hard to find, but is noticably different to freehold houses. If you see a cheap apartment in Sweden it is leasehold (equivilent).

HTH

tim

[tim123]

I

I haven't had a chance to look at the damage and can't see where it's coming from, but in principle should this be covered by the landlords buildings insurance? I don't want to payout unless I have to!

thanks.

In principle, unless this is coming from a shared boiler that you have no access to, No.

HTH

tim

[Ardesco]

Flats are rarely freehold because of the building maintenance issues. This being said after a set number of years you can club together with everybody else on the same floor as you and buy the freehold between you. Only worth doing if you and a bunch of people you know want to oust the management company by buying up the existing freeholds.

[~Craig~]

thanks ~craig~

call me old fashioned I'd rather have good old fashioned freehold and be done with it

but whatever floats your boat eh

Milan.

yep, when we sell this place and buy a house it will be freehold.