Council asks private tenants to report landlords who fail on repairs

Poor little child , this is one thing I can agree on totally

No excuse in this day and age for this to happen, outrageous

Who do you contact to “ grass” the council up for none repairs ?

Very sad situation to loose a child or anyone and my heart goes out to all concerned RIP.
It’s wrong to generalise and use this sad case to attack all landlords how low can you get.
We have people killed on the roads every day we don’t attack all motorists because a person has unfortunately passed away as regrettable as that is.
There are many issues surrounding mould and the causes, it can the Tenants life style or their failure to deal to deal with simple things to prevent it from happening. Sometimes changing the paint work with cheap rubbish paint 10 litres for £16.00 whereas I use only anti-mould paint £65.00 for 5 litres no comparison, no mould you can wash it scrub it still like new. Also some never open a window or draw a blind and dry clothes inside, always worse with non working families in house all day and night building up moisture, shackling up.
Of Course it can be the Building and often is, at the same time it amazes me why adults living in a property won’t lift a finger to help themselves. The people who banned landlords from the property in reasonable day light hours have a lot to answer for, much of this would be seen and dealt with instead of scared to visit his property.

I suggest councils get their own house in order before turning on landlords!! Whenever you see these cases in the press it's always council / housing association (most of which are former council properties by another name). Not saying all landlords are perfect, and bearing in mind most cases of mould are due to tenant lifestyle.

I wonder what would happen if my tenant reported a disrepair issue to my local Council.
He lives in an ex Council maisonette where the Council is the freeholder and I am only the leaseholder.
There have been various water ingress issues in the 10 years I have owned it which the Council have been told of on numerous occasions and have done very little to address.
The day after I bought it there was heavy rain resulting in about 2 litres of water pouring out of the bathroom light fitting. I phoned the Council repair team and was told they would look at it when they got round to it. I then phoned environmental health and said in my risk assessment role I was concerned about the safety aspect of water pouring out of an electrical fitting and as a leaseholder what should I do about it. They said I should contact the freeholder. When I pointed out the freeholder wasn't willing to even look at it until they got round to it the EHO asked who the freeholder was. At that point I told him it was the Council. The surveyor came out the next day. There wasn't a reliable conventional repair solution due to the structure of the building - cantilevered balconies with no drainage and conduits for the wiring. Water pools on the balconies, soaks into the brickwork and tracks along the cantilever and conduit. On that occasion we resolved the issue by getting an electrician to reroute the wiring for the bathroom light and we fitted mini guttering from the hole where the old light fitting was to the outside wall, drilled through for a small outlet pipe and fitted a suspended pvc ceiling. Unconventional but it works.
On the other side of the building it's more difficult. Water soaks in from the balcony and saturates the fibre cavity wall insulation, then periodically soaks through the lounge wall. A surveyor eventually came and looked in October 2021 after failing to turn up on multiple occasions. He agreed the problem was caused by a lack of drainage on the balcony above and then went back to the office and apparently said no action was required. No one bothered telling me he'd made that decision until last week when I reported the issue yet again. The property is due to have the soaking wet fibre cavity wall insulation removed and replaced with the bead type at some unspecified point in the fullness of time. Apparently the funding is available but not the workforce.
Just how long is a tenant supposed to put up with a soggy wall and what can a leaseholder do to speed things up?

Looks like Councils want us to forget their continuing role in social housing and distance themselves from scandals like Rochdale and Grenfell.

Jo I have had a similar situation caused by Tenants damaging up stairs bathroom toilet saturation bathroom wall below including cavity wall insulation.
Firstly obviously stop the source then leave a few weeks to partially dry out, it won’t dry fully that will take 6 months, apply one coat Thompson Damp Seal its brilliant and breathable leave it until next day apply anti mould paint job done.
Regarding minor leaks from outside above Wickes acrylic flexible water proofing for roof’s very good, you can also clean balcony and brush on a Thompson roof top coat the kind stuff you brush on some flat roofs.

• Jahan Khan
• 22 November 2022 22:42 PM

Excellent info Michael. Will help me on a currant matter

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• Frances
• 25 November 2022 09:07 AM

Michael, aka ‘the voice of experience’. I have made note of your extremely helpful advice, should we experience such a problem. Thank you.

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''POT KETTLE BLACK'' here boys, don't need to say any more do I ?

• Robert Brown
• 22 November 2022 20:58 PM

What about the girls - and the "others"?

Lots of valuable non-male posters on here too - possibly too shy to point out your rare faux pas Andrew?

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Jo, its best to deal with it yourself involving freehold is a nightmare not least when it’s a Council. I have a leasehold Flat in a small Block where there is 10 flats mostly 2 storey one part 3 storey. Everyone moaning about Facias and gutters. I offered to do for £4k, I would have laddered it wasn’t a problem I would have it done while they were looking at it, they didn’t take the offer didn’t matter to me. So let them get on with it scaffolding goes up £4k before start it ended up £16k but they then claimed £4k in extras too that I had included, so organise your own repairs.

• Andrew townshend
• 22 November 2022 10:41 AM

I think all building companies know to quote high for council work, if they get it it's a bonus, if they don't they haven't lost anything

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• Jo Westlake
• 22 November 2022 11:37 AM

Michael - I agree it's better to do what you can without involving the freeholder in some situations.
I own 5 leasehold flats, 2 ex Council, one with a fantastic very responsive freeholder, one with an incredibly expensive management company who won't allow leaseholders to do anything (including hoovering the communal hallway) and one which is currently a bit of an unknown concept.
The ex Council one in question is one where I can't remedy the problem because it doesn't stem from a part of the building that is within my demise. It's from the balcony belonging to the flat above. It doesn't matter what I do to my flat if the water has already entered the cavity higher up the building. Obviously when the flats were built they didn't have cavity wall insulation, so water would have run down the cavity and soaked away at the bottom or just been contained in the outer skin of bricks. It's the fact the Council installed the wrong type of cavity wall insulation that has caused the current problem. Of course removing and replacing the insulation is a far bigger, more specialist job than just installing it in the first place.

Other than pvc cladding the lounge wall (which is wrong on so many levels) I can't think of another solution while we wait however many years it takes for the insulation to be changed.

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• Andrew townshend
• 22 November 2022 11:55 AM

Open cavities work best, cavity wall insulation is a con and causes so many problems further down the road, building control say it should be in new build but generally don't look. if they do notice it's not there just say we''ll have it blown in they'll never know that it wasn't done

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Andrew I should have said it is a private Block.

Michael I think you’re spot-on. I suspect it is tenant misuse by not ventilating and heating the property and cleaning up the mould when it does occur. In my experience nearly every problem with mould is down to tenants lifestyle. Problems created by social landlords such as Grenfall tower and mould are now being used to beat up private landlords

Jim Haliburton
The HMO Daddy

Did they not investigate the cause of the mould? How can they just blame the landlord? If the cause is not investigated, how can it be rectified? I could not see any mention of the cause. I did notice in one photo, clothes on the radiator.

• Simon Logan
• 22 November 2022 14:13 PM

I thought the same, but the death of the child effectively shut down any rational debate or investigation.

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Jo. I think you worry too much if you stop the leak and do what I said this morning it should be fine.
The cavity wall insulation’s that are blow-in are both fire & water resistant, They will go wet of course but don’t absorb water and are permeable which allowed moisture to escape so effect the repair and let nature do the job, it will dry out, forget about removing it.
I know some Freeholders are a pain and cost you money which is why we went through the legal process of Enfranchisement so now we all have a Share of the Freehold and less extended to virtually 999 years and our Service Charges reduced by £500. pa, yes we pay a cleaner to clean common parts and do the gardening. We Insure the block etc. Maybe you should consider enfranchisement on some of the Private Flats if you can get others on board.
The temperature has dropped a lot today I got frozen painting an external door but its therapeutic for for anti-landlord regulation.

• Jo Westlake
• 22 November 2022 17:14 PM

Michael - I can't stop the leak because I can't stop it raining.
The rain pools on the balcony and soaks into the building along the cantilever bars.
Drainage outlets on the balcony were discussed but isn't something I have a legal right to do. The surveyor agreed it would probably help but then chose not to get it done.
Bead type insulation would help and is supposed to be installed eventually. The current fibre insulation certainly does hold water and bridges across the cavity. It may not hold it 12 months of the year but it holds it long enough after periods of rain for the lounge to have wet patches for several months from autumn through to spring.

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Come on now jo the leak has to be stopped, and don’t be stressing out about it, don’t know how big the balcony is but many of them are only a couple of m2, in any case so many products to solve this problem or the traditional way Asphalt it, getting rid of your puddles at same time, it will be water proof and ideal for the people overhead to use. Then get your Thompson Damp Seal decorate your wall with anti mould paint
Its not my first day on the job and was NHBC registered member from 1974. Otherwise it could end up like the one that I referred to where a £4k job ended up costing £20k. Jo my friend I’am trying to help you so reply with a novel, Best wishes

• Jo Westlake
• 22 November 2022 20:35 PM

Michael - I know what you are suggesting makes sense. Unfortunately I can't just go and do stuff to someone else's balcony. It belongs to the flat above mine. Technically it's only the freeholder who can do anything as it is part of the structure of the building.
It doesn't cause a problem for the person in the upstairs flat so they don't see the need to do anything. The Council will say one thing to me and then go back to the office and decide to do nothing.
This sort of shoulder sloping must be going on all over the country in thousands of leasehold properties.
Thousands of leaseholder landlords must be at their wits end trying to get basic work done by freeholders. Work that our leases expressly forbid us from doing ourselves. It's especially frustrating as we know we will have to pay our share of whatever the costs are plus the freeholders override. We know any contractors working for the Council are going to dream up a figure and then double it just because they can.

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London is in a desperate situation have the worst Mayor ever accountable to no one in reality. Collected 100 millions in first year of ULEZ soft money what has he done with this
wind fall money that he shouldn’t be entitled to, robbing the motorist, he doesn’t care at air it the soft money for nothing, now he has been overtaken by greed and going to extend the zone to M 25, another free £100 m, for him to waste. He wrongly sacked or made her resign Commander Cressida Dick head of Metropolitan Police

Jo
Go to the small claims court, and sue the council !