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?

Put stuff in writing too! Or at least in text messages so you can screen shot them.

@JohnofWessex The documents clearly state there’s no management fee, but we’ve given up fighting it and just pay to keep the peace—it’s much easier that way.
They used to mow the lawn several times a year when there was no charge, and it looked beautiful. But since they brought in a management company and started charging us, they only send a gardener twice a year. Now the weeds have overgrown massively—it’s like a jungle—and fly-tippers have started dumping rubbish there behind our house.
My husband even slipped on the wet leaves and weeds, which led to him needing a total hip replacement at just 45 years old. And with the ongoing water issue next door, we really want to leave this place for good lol

Based on my own experience, you only need the smallest crack in the grouting or mastic in an upstairs shower for enough water to escape to cause a stain some considerable distance away on a downstairs wall.
Based on your AI image, the neighbour’s shower could easily be the source of the problem.
I have had this with my own bathroom and also with the neighbour’s downstairs bathroom coming through to my kitchen. I ended up having my plaster hacked away and a plastic barrier installed because they denied there was any problem with their bathroom, even though I can see from the estate agent’s photos that the tiles are ancient and falling off the wall.

@Sidebeforeself The reason I’m stopping my husband from paying for next door’s repairs is that they might start demanding we cover everything if something else goes wrong. And if we did repairs without their landlord’s permission, he could end up in serious trouble (or even jail, lol!)

But he cant pay for something that they deny exists? What Im saying is your immediate issue isn’t who pays for what , its that they are blocking you from finding out the root cause

@Mumto4loveliesxx That’s exactly what my husband thinks. We had a water leak from our shower before and it got fixed very quickly. These terraced houses (we’re in one of them) were built for NHS workers when there was an NHS hospital nearby a long time ago, so they all date from the same period. If one house has a problem, it’s only a matter of time before the others do too.
But most houses round here are rented out to tenants at very cheap rates compared to nearby areas, so the landlords let the tenants handle all the maintenance instead—that way their rent stays low and the landlords don’t have to pay for repairs. They turn a blind eye to minor issues, so they tend to leave things until there’s a major repair needed. I’m not sure how that works legally. Someone we know pays just £800 a month for a 3-bed house just outside London, but he has to cover all his own repairs.

@Sidebeforeself They haven’t denied the water is coming from their side. As I mentioned in my earlier post, they even said they think it’s coming from their property. They just don’t want to contact their landlord or pay for a plumber to check behind the wall.
Their plumber just removed the bath panel and said the floor wasn’t wet, so it’s not their fault. But the thing is, they need to look behind the wall to properly check.

I once had a leak and did not know where it was coming from. I had a trace and access company come in that used I think gas to detect where the leak was coming from. It was covered on my own insurance (called trace and access).

@Araminta1003 Yes, that’s it—not track and trace as I mentioned earlier, but proper tracing and access. But now the plumber inspector has told us there’s a 0% chance the damage is coming from our side. I don’t know why we should have to pay to find out exactly where it’s coming from next door.Especially when I know our insurance premium will shoot up dramatically next year. We’ve already paid to speak to the insurance company’s solicitor for just 5 minutes on the phone, plus we paid for the Land Registry ourselves, only to find their details are outdated anyway.

Could you contact local rental agencies and see if any of them have the property? They won't tell you who the landlord is but they might pass on your details.

Do you actually believe the people who wrote and said it wasn't them? Can you see on the likes of Rightmove when the property changed hands?

OP when you speak to the neighbours, don’t let them know you’ve had no success finding the landlord to date. Explain it’s still leaking and you’ve had exhaustive work done which has determined it’s not coming from yours and they have x days to fix it or you feel you have no choice but to contact the landlord yourselves. See if that helps. If they know you don’t know who it is they’ll probably be less motivated?

1. We have similar BUT the leak was from OUR HOUSE it was the seals not a major leak under panels. I would mention this to neighbours.

1. As there is mould you can go to council to intervene on enviromental health grounds if they are being a nightmare.

1. They are actually legally binded to provide the council the landlords details make it in writting recorded delivery and mention the landlord tenant act 1985 * sorry edited to factual.

@SleepThiefSlayer We told them the other day that we’d posted a letter through their landlord’s letterbox. But since the information we had was out of date, they probably think we were making it up, as they wouldn’t have heard anything from the landlord by now. I didn’t realise it isn’t mandatory to keep the Land Registry updated with the current property owner, so I was quite confident the details were correct. Bit of a stupid mistake on my part.

I suspect the people next to you own the property and want you to think they don't so you don't expect much of them.

@Coffeislife The tenant’s plumber said the floor isn’t wet, so it doesn’t seem to be coming from their side. If it’s something to do with the seals, I would have thought the floor would be wet. If the tenant doesn’t give us their landlord’s details, I’ll contact the council. Our insurance company is coming tomorrow to assess the damage. We’ll seek some advice from them as well. Thanks.

@JaroSally I doubt it. When we said we had their landlord’s details, they looked shocked and asked how we’d got them. I said we’d got them through the Land Registry, but it turned out the details were outdated. Silly me.

I had a similar problem with downstairs ceiling staining, bathroom above. Our usual, excellent plumber couldn’t trace the leak, pretty much dismantled the bathroom (boiler was also just above the ceiling marks). Got another guy in to work with him .. it was a perished seal from the toilet that had been installed around 20 years ago. Yours may be the same issue? All the best with this.

If you look on Zoopla it should also tell you when the property was last sold. Could it be the person on the phone was bullshitting?

If they’ve refitted the bathroom without permission and it is now leaking the tenants are in a world of trouble…

@Tumbler2121 At first, the people next door thought it might be the seals, as the basin hadn’t actually been sealed, but when the plumber who fitted the basin and bath came round, he concluded that wasn’t the case and told them—and us—that the water was coming from our side, suggesting a pipe behind our wall was leaking, whereas our insurance company’s plumber found there is no pipe behind the wall.

@Dolphinnoises Initially, I thought the person we left the letter for was just playing games with us, but since the sold information on Zoopla is provided by HM Land Registry, it should match what’s recorded there, so I don’t think we’ll find anything out this way.

Our bathroom floor was bone dry but the water was trickling through our living room light, and making damp patches around it, was the corner seal. I do hooe it gets sorted for you though 🤗

@Coffeislife thanks.

The surveyor from the insurance company visited and assessed the damage. He also wanted to go next door to inspect their water damage and check whether there was any water on their bathroom floor. However, they didn’t come out, even though I could hear activity inside the house. He was, however, able to see some signs of damp through their window.
He suggested that we arrange for our own plumber to remove the floorboards or cut into the wall to demonstrate to next door that the issue isn’t coming from ourside.
I’m not sure why the insurance company didn’t send their own emergency plumber to carry out this work and verify it directly themselves.
In any case, we’ve contacted our regular plumber, and he said he can come and take a look either this Thursday or Friday.

The whole set up with your neighbours is a bit strange

But again off topic, if you don't use the leasehold land surrounding your home, then you shouldn't be paying anything if your property is freehold.

The landowner may have a claim if you are having to cross their land to get to your property.

As regards your water leak, I would print off a legal Action threat letter and drop that thru your neighbours letterbox. Given you're hoping to move, you'll not be worried about upsetting them.
Thats is .....if they wont give you the landlords details.

Any chance there's a letting agent handling the tenanted property?

Hello OP

Any update about The Council?