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Building damage, who is responsible for fixing?
The house next door is converted into 3 flats. The man in flat 1 hired a cowboy builder to carry out some harebrained scheme to rectify a damp problem. The builder smashed up the concrete in flat 2 s garden and in the alley between my building and theirs. He then dug out half a flowerbed in front of flat 1 before he downed tools and left.
The hole he has dug in the alley has left the brickwork of my building exposed below what was previously ground level. The hole is now full of broken rubble and covered by two planks but it is basically a hole that shouldn't be there and needs fixing ASAP. I rang the estate agent responsible for flat 2 which has sole use of the alley and a very rude woman told me to get my landlady to sort it out.
I'm sure that if I ring her she will , but is it up to her to deal with this? The agent is responsible for managing that property , but it was the flat 1 tenant/owner who ordered the work. Any advice gratefully received, my landlady is already organising a lot if building work for my flat later in the year and lives hundreds of miles away so if I can get away with not bothering her I would like to.
The hole he has dug in the alley has left the brickwork of my building exposed below what was previously ground level. The hole is now full of broken rubble and covered by two planks but it is basically a hole that shouldn't be there and needs fixing ASAP. I rang the estate agent responsible for flat 2 which has sole use of the alley and a very rude woman told me to get my landlady to sort it out.
I'm sure that if I ring her she will , but is it up to her to deal with this? The agent is responsible for managing that property , but it was the flat 1 tenant/owner who ordered the work. Any advice gratefully received, my landlady is already organising a lot if building work for my flat later in the year and lives hundreds of miles away so if I can get away with not bothering her I would like to.
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Phone your landlady and get her to sort it out with the estate agent. It's her responsibility.
Does the work undermine the foundations of your building? Then the hole should be properly filled in and they might actually have needed permission for the work (to do with the party wall act). Who owns the passageway between the houses?
If the hole is just a nuisance, then it doesn't matter so much (damp won't get in), but if the agent gets the idea they might be sued if someone falls in, it might be sorted out sooner.
He definitely needed permission because in two places he was digging only the tenants of the back flat should be able to gain access .
Yes, that's what I meant - not that the OP's landlord should pay, but it would be her buildings insurance.
Sounds like the builder is underpinning the building not installing a DPC, does the building have a subsidence problem?
If it didn't before, it may well have now.
It is not normally necessary to do any digging to install a DPC, an electrical DPC or silicon injection DPC require no digging which is why I suspect the building is being underpinned with concrete which would indicate a subsidence problem which may have in turn caused a break in the DPC
then the moron builder gets arrested for criminal damage!
From your description of the work it certainly sounds like underpinning, the way the builder is doing the work is normal for underpinning and is always difficult and messy but there is no easy way around it. I would ask the builder or letting agent why the work is being carried out. I have never ever seen anyone use concrete to cure damp or mould, a simple electrical or injected DPC is the most common route to take and does not create a lot of mess.
It's possible the building might have a cellar, like the OP's. I don't know whether damp penetration in that case is best fixed from inside or outside.
But if it is subsidence, the owner the of the OP's property needs to start taking an interest, as it could affect their property too (and not just because the ground is being dug up).