Water leak in terraced house

[Super111]

I’m posting under a different name for privacy reasons.
I would be grateful for any suggestions on what I should do next and where I stand with this.

About three weeks ago, I noticed a small water stain appearing on the living room wall downstairs. I have attached a picture taken a week ago for reference. At first it was quite faint, but over time it has gradually grown and is now spreading along the junction between the wall and the ceiling. The area feels slightly damp to the touch.

I live in a terraced house. The room above the affected area is a child’s bedroom, and the bathroom in my property is on the opposite side of the house. However, the stain is exactly on the shared wall with my neighbour’s upstairs bathroom. My neighbour had their bathtub, toilet and sink fitted about two years ago.

I initially spoke to the tenants next door, and they said there was no water pooling or visible leaks in their bathroom. Even so, they arranged for the company that installed their bathroom to come and inspect it. The tenants usually deal with most repairs themselves, as they are concerned about their rent going up, so they asked me not to contact the landlord directly. I agreed to wait for their plumber to come and inspect the issue first. When they came, they didn’t open up the wall but removed the bath panel and concluded there was no leak in their installation. They suggested instead that the issue was coming from my property.
For context, there is also staining on the wall in my neighbour’s downstairs toilet area.

Because the damp started developing mould in my property, I contacted my insurance company, and today they sent out a plumber they work with to investigate. He found that there are no water pipes running through the party wall in question, my bathroom is not located above the affected room, and my roof was completely replaced last year so there is no possibility of a roof leak either. His conclusion was that the leak is not coming from my property at all. If it were, they would have started opening up my wall today to investigate further, but he ruled that out entirely.

The problem is that the mould is getting worse, and I want to resolve this quickly. However, the neighbour’s bathroom installers have already suggested it is coming from my side, and I suspect both the tenants and the landlord next door may believe that.

My insurer’s plumber has basically said there is no plumbing on my side that could be responsible, so it must be coming from the neighbouring property, but beyond that there’s not much more they can do. I dropped a letter to their landlord today as they weren’t in at the time.

I’m now unsure how to proceed if the landlord is not willing to engage with the issue. What would be the best next step in this situation?

I’ve just received a message from the person I believed was the owner of the house next door, after I posted a letter to them. I obtained their address from the Land Registry after paying for it. They called me from an unknown number and said they don’t own the property next to my house, adding that I should “good luck finding the real owner.” I know the tenant won’t share the owner’s details with me, and I really don’t know what to do now.

Anyone know what to do ?

Is there any damp in the room above?
Is the carpet damp up there above the leak?
Have you had the carpet and floor up in the bedroom above?
Could your child have spilled water/other fluid in their bedroom above the leak?

There is no damp in the child’s room.
The carpet is not wet.
We have not lifted the carpet or floorboards in the room above.
There is only a chest of drawers in the child’s room above the leak.
My teenage child’s desk is not located above the area of the leak, so he could not have spilt anything, and he is very tidy.
We had the entire roof repaired last year, and there are no water pipes on our side running through the shared wall between my property and next door, only their water pipes. This was confirmed by the insurance company’s plumber.

I got an AI to create an image for me—it’s a bit rough. It looks something like this: the house on the right is my house, and the house on the left is the neighbour’s house. From this image, there is water damage only on the upper-left area of my living room wall on the ground floor.
And there is also water damage on the upper-right part of the wall in the neighbour’s downstairs toilet

Have you a shared chimney? It’s possible that there’s a problem with the flashing or maybe something to do with the gutters , they could be blocked and water is spilling under the roof felt .
With terraces it’s very difficult to find where the problem originates .
My daughter had a similar experience ,it turned out that it was the roofing felt on next door’s that had disintegrated over time and the water was running into her bedroom , the neighbours was perfectly dry with no problems but she had water coming down the wall .

Will your insurer help you locate the owner? Omly because it's only going to get worse & cost them more?

@almondflake I don’t think it has anything to do with the gutter, as my child’s room is perfectly fine with no water leaks from the ceiling. We don’t share a chimney either. The insurance company’s plumber thinks a water pipe may be slightly leaking due to age.

@Cocachanel I'm not at that stage yet, and I’m not sure. The tenant doesn’t want to give me their landlord’s address because they’re worried their rent might go up. As a result, they don’t even seem willing to get the problem fixed.
I looked online about this sort of issue and it says to contact the council’s Environmental Health / Health and Safety team, but I doubt they’ll do anything. In my experience, when I’ve reported other issues, nothing was ever done. They never seem to forget to collect the council tax every month, though.
I have asthma, so I don’t want the situation to get worse. The insurance company won’t repair the damage until the water leak has been sorted out.

Thank you.

I suggest that you need to contact your insurer - do you have legal cover? AND the Local Authority.

ALSO in many (most?) there is a clause requiring the tenant to forward any notices served on the property to the landlord AND to notify them promptly of any repairs needed.

A quick search also suggests that the Local Authority can serve an abatement notice under S80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 so get on to them, it would be Environmental Health/Housing Standards team I suggest.

In short the tenants being uncoperative could bring a whole load of doo-doo down on themselves

https://www.justanswer.co.uk/law/r94ot-neighbour-leak-causing-damage-property.html

Might be worth a look

Have you had the roof repair job checked? Is the roof work under a guarantee period?

@JohnofWessex I have legal cover, and I’ve just been explaining my situation over the phone for about five minutes, but they charged me £96.20, which is a bit ridiculous. I imagine solicitor costs will end up exceeding the limit of the legal cover anyway.

The problem is I’m going away on holiday for three weeks in two months’ time, and I don’t know what might happen if the situation gets worse and I come back to a flood.

Yes, the tenant should be more cooperative, but I don’t think they want their rent to increase.

Thanks for all the info, I appreciate it

I would suggest getting on to The Council asap possibly given that you will be away your Councillor as well.

I would also suggest that you talk to your neighbours tomorrow and say that you will be doing whatever it takes to get this sorted so they had better give you the landlords contact details asap or you will be 'taking action' to get the matter resolved' which may well not reflect well on them

@Ohfudgeoff
It has nothing to do with the roof. There is no leak upstairs, only downstairs in one area of the living room. Even the plumber the neighbour called didn’t mention the roof, as there is no leak upstairs. They simply said it must be a water pipe behind the wall on my side that is leaking, but I’ve found that there are no water pipes on my side of that wall.

The insurer’s plumber has explained everything. He said there is a 0% chance it is coming from my side, so he will inform my insurance company. The insurance company is due to come next Tuesday to assess the damage and see how much it will cost to fix. However, they can only carry out the repairs once the water leak has been resolved.

@JohnofWessex I think it might come across as threatening if I mention legal action to the tenant. I’m planning to call the council on Monday, but I doubt they’ll do much, as usual.
I have a husband, and he just wants to pay for next door’s repairs and put an end to all this, as he doesn’t want the hassle and we’ve already lost some money. But I don’t understand why we should have to pay for it in the first place.　

I might just watch Nightmare Tenant then

I would not threaten the tenants (or anyone else for that matter) with anything specific BUT I would make it clear to them IF they dont give you the landlord details that you will be 'taking action to get the situation resolved' - something like that

IE whether you like it or not its going further and it would be better if you gave me the landlords details now

Thinking about it of course there is also a Housing Standards issue if there is a private rented property with a water leak thats not been dealt with

Your Councillor can chase it up if The Council doesnt do anything or failing that your MP

I might try saying that if the tenants next door still don’t do anything. My husband is almost ready to pay for the repairs to the neighbour’s house himself, and we keep arguing about it — it’s honestly so frustrating

I'm glad you have already checked the roof! It was the last thing we thought to check when we had a leak patch in the corner wall/ceiling of our downstairs dining room area (an 1880s Victorian mid terrace) which turned out to be the result of slipped roof tiles on the neighbours side. We had spent about 10k on our roof about 18m prior so it was the last begruding thing we thought to check. We got into a big battle with out neighbours over it. Cost a lot to resolve for a few measly roof tiles!

You can download the Title Register from the Land Registry. It costs £7 and will tell you who the owner of the property is.

https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

Firstly I suggest that any decent plumber would not touch the job if they realised that it wasnt the owner ordering the job.

Dear neighbour, we have still got water coming into our house and the Insurance says its coming from your house, please can we have the landlords details so we can get it sorted

If Yes then thats great

If no

Well we cant leave it like this, I will have to get it sorted which may involve my insurers or The Council getting involved to trace him.

From your picture it seems the only source of the leak must be the basin in the upstairs bathroom. Maybe not from pipes in the wall but from the wast outlet under the floorboards.

The leak is there and is running down your wall and their downstairs loo wall.

Is there any chance that radiator pipes are leaking? Keep an eye on boiler pressure as it will drop if there is a leak.
You may need to lift the floorboards in the room above the leak to check.
Unfortunately water runs and then finds an escape route, where you see water may not be whete the water is coming from. But lifting the floorboards could give you an idea.
Other ideas - roof- yours or theirs.
Window.

@FidelmaFlump I already posted that it had been done. Please read it properly. The information listed there was outdated, and it didn’t include the current landlord’s details.

@JohnofWessex The tenant definitely won’t give us their landlord’s address, but we can at least try.