Letter 18th February 2011
Friday 18th February 2011
And Follow Up Meeting:
On Thursday 10th March 2011, the owners of the top floor flats all met, with Sharon and Simon Saffery, long time owners of 1F1, and I thought it may be helpful to capture a brief summary of what we agreed, in our shared interest of protecting our building yet avoiding a council statutory notice:
Dear Property Owner,
It has been evident for quite some years that the maintenance of our building has been sorely neglected and that more significant repair work would be required sooner or later.
It will therefore come as no surprise to learn that with the recent heavy weather, later has become now:
John Whyte has again had to endure water leaking badly into his property at 3F3 46 Brunswick Street. He had no option but to arrange emergency remedial work, which he did with AO Blair (see attached invoice). This is the same firm who did the last ‘temporary’ repair some years ago. When they came last week, AO Blair advised that further work would be required that was beyond their scope and recommended obtaining additional quotes. With incredible patience and persistence, John finally identified another company willing to quote (BBM). BBM have now been instructed to complete the further necessary ‘holding’ works that will enable John to continue living in his property. (See attached quote).
John is willing to underwrite the payment of these temporary works, and will be seeking to gather the equal shares from each property in due course.
However, we can no longer ignore the fact that the fabric of our building (not to mention the sanity and emotional wellbeing of your neighbours!), is quite literally deteriorating before our eyes, inevitably reducing the value of each of our properties.
The Edinburgh Council advises:
As an owner you are legally responsible for any accidents caused by defects in your building. Poor building conditions can also reduce property value, lead to big repair bills and mean cold or damp living conditions. It is in the best interest of owners to keep their building in a good state of repair and maintenance. Otherwise you risk losing control either by neglect or by intervention with a statutory notice from the Council.
Long term solutions to organising common repairs:
A - Set up an Owners Association: a group with formal agreements about how decisions are made, how bills are paid and sets out rules and responsibilities of all owners.
B - Hire a factoring service: A factoring service will carry out regular surveys of your building and arrange regular repair and maintenance work on your behalf.
We have tried over the years, to establish something more formal than the adhoc intervention of individuals, but with little success. Despite searching, there appear to be no factoring services in Edinburgh that are willing to take on this role.
The Council’s Edinburgh Stair Partnership (that all but two properties agreed to join back in 2007) would have been the most effective and viable way of proceeding and avoiding an immediate statutory notice. However, I have just heard that the ESP service is to be a victim of the budget cuts and is to be terminated.
Both time and options appear to have run out for us.
This is to inform you, then, that Edinburgh Council Property Conservation Department has been notified and instructed to come and survey the building.
This will take place within the next 2-3 weeks.
If they consider it necessary, they will then serve a statutory notice for the necessary repairs to the building. This is likely to include the roof and stairwell at least, where an increasingly large damp patch is clearly visible, but who knows what might else be concealed?
We would have 28 days from the date of issue of any notice to demonstrate our ability to make our own arrangements. If anyone is willing to take responsibility for leading this, please contact me. In the absence of us making any arrangements (in other words establishing a formal Owner’s Association or appointing a factoring service), the council would then take over coordination of all the works, including the tendering process, appointment of contractors and gathering payments.
(More information on statutory notices and what this means is attached).
If you have any comments or would like to discuss this, please don’t hesitate to contact either myself or John Whyte.
Catriona M Macmillan 3F2 46 Brunswick Street EH7 5HY | John Whyte 3F3 46 Brunswick Street EH7 5HY |
And Follow Up Meeting:
On Thursday 10th March 2011, the owners of the top floor flats all met, with Sharon and Simon Saffery, long time owners of 1F1, and I thought it may be helpful to capture a brief summary of what we agreed, in our shared interest of protecting our building yet avoiding a council statutory notice:
We will obtain at least 3 separate assessments / estimates for repair / maintenance of the whole roof at 46 Brunswick Street, asking for a detailed check to be carried out and a breakdown to be given for each of the following areas:
- Gutters/Rhones
- Flashing
- Chimneys
- Slates/Tiles
- Arials, etc
- Roofspace
- Stairwell
The firms we shall ask will be:
- BBM (Sharon to contact)
- AO Blair (Sharon to contact)
- Aardvark (Alan to contact)
- Lee McNeice (Forster Roofing) (Catriona to contact)
In asking for these quotes etc, we will also ask for an estimate for how much a regular maintenance check would be, and what is and is not included. All top floor properties will be contactable to make arrangement for access where required.
In the meantime, City of Edinburgh Council Property Conservation Department has now been contacted to let them know that we have been able to organise ourselves to make our own arrangements for repairs. We hope that you will join us in this endeavour.
In terms of ongoing communication, we agreed that it would be worth trying this ‘blog’ to enable more consistent and regular communication.
I will send details of this out (hopefully this weekend) to all the addressees which will explain what we are proposing and why, and that they can choose to subscribe to it by email (top right hand corner). I will also invite them all to become an ‘author’, i.e. to be able to post messages. (This involves having a Google account, but it costs nothing and takes only a moment to set up if they’ve not got one already).
I will also post some links from there to relevant documents such as the tenement act, etc etc.
I hope that everyone agrees that is a fair and reasonable way to progress.
Kind regards,
Catriona
