Gah!

[andrewducker]

I need to get hold of my deeds to find out if I can get anyone else to contribute towards the costs of sorting the pipe (which now seems to be corroded further up (although still within my flat).  However, my bank are telling me that they can't copy the deeds and give that copy to me, but they will let a solicitor look at them.

Can that possibly be right?  Or should I keep phoning them until I get a customer services person who will send them to me?

Anyone had to go through this themselves?

Comments

[drplokta]

Make a DPA request for all information that they hold in relation to your mortgage account.

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

would that just cover your mortgage account?
I don't know for certain and yes he should do it anyway. but i'm not sure where the property deeds would fall in this legal relationship.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Hmm, Durant v FSA - wouldn't that just cover personal information about the mortgage, viz. that they have a mortgage with him?

[drplokta]

But are they going to have a lawyer analyse all of the paperwork on every file, for every £10 DPA request, to determine what's personal and what's not, or are they just going to photocopy the lot and stick it in the post?

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

They would get an underpaid admin assistant to prune the file in line with a documented work process, probably ISO 2001-whatever compliant.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Lets just demolish the entire flat.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The 'title deeds' as such are the legal registration of your lease and the register of any easements or covenants affecting the lease (I imagine that what you are after is details of any repairing coventants). These should be available for a couple of quid for download from the Land Registry.

In my (limited) experience covenants are usually described in much more detail by the leasehold agreement. Do you have this or is this what the bank are holding? (I have mine, but then I'm lucky enough not to have a mortgage.)

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Get the council out - they'll come and enforce it on the whole building. most pipes which run the length of the building are considered communal, as is the roof. Your solicitor may well have a copy of yoru deeds - I know mine does as I had to query car parking with him.

[andrewducker]

Spoken to someone. It is communal - but the council won't get involved as the repair has been carried out. Instead what I need to do is get copies of the invoice to the people above me and then ask them for their share. If they don't pay then I have to take them to the small claims court, but they would be liable.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

damn - that sucks

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a serious hassle. I suspect that things work the same thing over here.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

Stick a football bladder into the pipe and inflate it.
Tell them that until they pay you what they owe you they don't get use of the pipe.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Patch up jobs don't work on a pipe unleass there's a proven reason for the repair requorement - The water finds the next weakest point and will force through. Your pipe was corroded behind your wall and not at below ground level so no direct relation for the pipe corrosion, i.e. ground damp etc. Chances are the pipe is at the end of its life(this happened in my mum's building) and therefore you keep patching within your property the pipe will burst further up, outwith your place and then just flood your place which will end up with another insurance claim. Call Edinburgh Coincil and ask for advice.

[andrewducker]

Damned if I can actually remember who my solicitor _was_ - and it's all in boxes stacked 6-feet high at the moment, due to the damp problem. Trying the Registers of Scotland to get my deeds now...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I suspect that a good place to start will be making a claim on the shared building insurance, as the pipe is part of the exterior wall...

[andrewducker]

Shared building insurance? Wossat then?

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

It's an english thing. We have councils to administer that stuff.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Our lease requires that all the leasehold tenants have buildings insurance on top of contents and home insurance - it's insurance for the fabric of the building and the shared infrastructure. It's what we claimed on when the roof in the shared hall fell in... It covers (among other things) the drains and the mains water feeds.

[andrewducker]

Aaaah. I don't have a lease - I own...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

So there is no common freehold for the fabric of the building? So there's no way of jointly insuring for rebuilding and the like?

If that's the case, that really does complicate things...

We own, but we also have a shared freehold with the flat downstairs in order to have joint ownership of the shared elements of the building - so that shared freehold owns the individual leases of the two flats...

Joys of leasehold ownership :-)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I was exposed to the Scottish way of doing things when I lived up there a couple of years ago.

In my experience, anyone English with knowledge and experience of property law thinks the Scottish approach to multi-tenant buildings is insane. Equally, anyone Scottish with knowledge and experience of property law thinks the English approach to multi-tenant buildings is insane...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Well might be different in Scotland, but I would say that is total balls. The deeds still belong to you.
Does your bank have a branch? I would go there and raise merry hell until you get a manager out to talk to you. And then raise hell with them too as they will probably be twelve.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Ann and I didn't get our actual deed documentation back until the mortgage was paid off, but I can see no reason whatsoever why a photocopy (with "copy" stamped upon it) should not be made available at a reasonable cost.

[daisyflip.livejournal.com]

The Boy had some experience of this a few years ago: leaky pipe causing damage in the flat. He had to pay for the damage it had caused within the flat but got a statutory notice sent to other flats in the building and got the money back with no real problem. If you want to know more I'll quiz him and send you an email?

[andrewducker]

I think I'm ok for the moment (I spoke to someone at the council and have my deeds on order). I may give you a shout later though - thanks!

Plumbers

[ajax-nz.livejournal.com]

We've just discovered damp in our place :-(
Any reccomendations/warnings about any particular builders/plumbers?

Re: Plumbers

[andrewducker]

Jackie's damp specialists, that she already recommended to Jo, are very good.

Any idea what the source is?

Re: Plumbers

[ajax-nz.livejournal.com]

Yep. Traced it to the main riser for the stair.
which is lead...

So I guess it can either be patched or a full replacement started...