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

[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...