My neighbour’s downpipe is leaking into my house - what can I do??

[TheBerry]

I live in an otherwise very pleasant terraced street. All my neighbours are very nice. Everyone looks after their properties.

Apart from one house directly adjoining mine.

It has been rented out as long as I’ve been there and always been an absolute cesspit. Filthy, terrible state of repair, junk and mess in every room and filling up the garden. Tenants are nice people but obviously unusual in that they seem fine with living in squalor.

The mess is one thing, but the poor state of repair is now directly affecting my house. Their downpipe is broken and the pointing needs redoing, and now whenever it rains the water just seeps through their wall into their living room, then straight from their living room into mine (I am downhill of them). I’ve a permanent massive damp patch on my wall and there’s no point redecorating until their downpipe and pointing is fixed. I don’t blame the tenants for this, but the landlord. Contacting him, however, has been tricky. The tenants said they’d managed to speak to him a few months ago and it was “being sorted” but nothing happened.

Anyway, now the tenants have vanished and the house is up for sale. I and another neighbour have managed to track down the owner and message him about the issues. He’s a friar, of all things.

He ignored us for a while and then today responded as per the below. I feel like he should be obligated to fix the issue now and probably pay for my repairs. It doesn’t seem fair (or possible?) to lump all that on any potential future owners, either.

I’ve contacted the council but they just say I need to sort it with the owner.

What can I do?? Thanks for your help!

Suggest you:
Reply to the owner that these repairs need to be done urgently;
Get in touch with the auction company and tell them there is an on-going dispute which needs to be added to the buyer's pack.
Have you costed the remedial works to your property? Maybe there is a way to recover them.

If the dispute gets mentioned at auction, though, might that put people off buying it?

I’m worried it’ll then sit empty even longer and the condition will get even worse.

Yes it will put buyers off but he won't want it sat empty so it incentivises him to repair it.

I'd be asking him to make the claim off his insurance...... as a landlord he certainly should have it!

have you contacted your insurance?

No, not yet. I’m not particularly savvy with stuff like this and I wasn’t sure if it would cover it or if it would just end up raising my premiums or something.

I guess I should contact my insurance and then they’ll just claim against the friar???

I feel kinda guilty because I’m guessing he doesn’t really have money, being a friar, and I’d assume he charged the tenants absolutely minimum rent.

You pay insurance so that you get support with this sort of thing. Call them before the damage gets worse.

Ok, thank you, I’ll call them today.

Don't let your house rot because you've made up a story where the landlord was charging minimal rent and is awfully poor.

If the house is currently empty I'd nip over there with a ladder, black bag or thicker rubble sack and a roll of duct tape and wrap it around the down pipe if it's the actual pipe leaking. It won't be perfect but hopefully it'll hold enough to stop any more water getting through

Don’t assume the friar has no money,
He has owned the house and rented it out for years.

How broken is it?
Can you see where it is broken?

I’d be tempted to hop over the fence whilst it is empty and do a quick repair myself rather than wait any longer, as he clearly doesn’t care.

Plastic downpipe really aren’t expensive or difficult to fit, if cast iron you can buy a rubber ring to tie over a hole, or duck tape it.

It’s that the stopend(?) is missing so rather than going down the pipe the water just pours down the side of the house in massive sheets. The wall behind their downpipe is just black now.

Because their pointing is basically nonexistent the water then just seeps into their house and then into mine.

Here’s their living room.

It up for auction so it would take longer to go through official channels to get work done

can you do a bodge repair on down pipe with silicone or tape hopefully that would stop the water
and just wait till it has new owners for rest

You've waited this long, it's summer - tbh I'd just wait for new buyer to fix it up. If they're going to rent it out again, you could flag with council that it's not fit for human habitation.

Stop end on Amazon is less than a tenner, I'd still try some bodge DIY to fix it whilst you wait. It might dry out over the summer.

Pick one up from screwfix and if you don’t want to climb a ladder yourself, on your local Facebook for someone to fit it for you. I’ve had minor gutter repairs like that done by the local window cleaner for £10, he’s up & down the ladder in minutes clipping a bit back into place.

Unfortunately your insurance premium may well rise as a result of reporting this issue to your insurers. However, I don't think you really have a choice at this stage, the longer you leave it the worse the damage will potentially be. Also by just leaving it you put at risk any future claims for this as the insurer may say you were aware of the issue and didn't report it at renewal.

I might give the Friar one last chance and text him again in MUCH stronger terms. State that his response is unacceptable as he is the current legal owner he is responsible. Say unless he he fixes the issue immediately you will report to your insurers which may result in legal action being taken against him.

I'd definitely nip round with ladder and stop end, and repair that to prevent further water following the same route regardless of what else you do.

So this is what I was saying to the tenants a few months back but apparently because it’s Victorian guttering it’s metal and a weird shape so a special stopend was getting made. Standard ones don’t fit.

However, that never materialised.

I can remind the friar of that when I email him back, though. I’ll go back to him with some of the commenters’ suggestions, thanks all, and see what he says… then from there maybe take it to insurance.

Get in touch with the auction company and tell them there is an on-going dispute which needs to be added to the buyer's pack.

This is excellent advice. I’d contact the auctioneers today.

Shall I send this to Friar David 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Good email. I’d also add that you are contacting the auction house to inform them of the situation, so that it can be added to the legal pack. That’ll put a rocket up him.

Thanks I will

I emailed the friar and added in about notifying the auctioneers too 😬😬😬

Can’t help feeling a bit sorry for the friar idk why.

Anyway I’ll see if he replies.

Hopefully that'll shift him!