Long leasehold / poor quality building repairs

[havoc]

Need some advice here (not for us).

Long-leasehold property was hit by a car last year. Damage to wall and to a uPVC door/window, as well as to much of the room behind it. Insurance job, car driver's insurer hasn't argued liability.


There's always a but though, isn't there? In this instance the freeholder is a property management company, and they have the buildings insurance and are reponsible for buildings maintenance. The Director of that company has appointed a builder who is connected to him, rather than going through the insurance-approved repairer.

The building repairs are now "finished", except they're a joke - door/window frame not square, brickwork no longer level, inside walls not "square" (i.e. not right angles to each other when viewed from above), carpentry is 3rd rate at best.

Questions have been raised about all of this, but the Director has glossed over them and said "it's nearly finished", and no contact details have been provided for the builders themselves. Leaseholder is very concerned (as am I) that the Director of the freeholding company will just tell the insurance "yeah, we're happy", the 3P's insurer will pay up, and the leaseholder will be left with a lemon (and potentially no way of fixing it even at her expense as it's not her responsibility to).


Because it's a long-leasehold:-
- As I understand it, neither the car driver nor the insurer has any duty of care to the leaseholder, only the freeholder. Hoping someone will tell me I'm wrong here;
- The leaseholder can't just walk away, as they have (substantially all of) the equity in the property. Rock / hard-place!
- These piss-poor repairs will however reduce the value of said long-leasehold and in my view make it a bh to sell in the future - if I saw a wall like that, I'd run a mile...


It's not gone legal yet - the insurers are still in the loop, but I don't know for how long. I'd just like some informed advice as to where the leaseholder genuinely stands and what can be done to avoid a legal dispute (she's got to live there going forwards - I'm also told the builders are the local "odd job men" for the whole estate, so any argument may have a long tail to it...).

[havoc]

Bump for the weekday crowd.

Couple of updates:-
- following a long and detailed e-mail (plus 100 photos) sent to insurer and to Prop Mgmt Co, the builders have been back in...except from what I'm being told they're only addressing the cosmetic issues not the structural / alignment ones.
- The insurers have referred the matter to subcontract loss-adjusters. After over a week, I've finally spoken to them and have received a very legal "party line". I'm now awaiting a formal response from them, but I'm not holding my breath.


So...where does the leaseholder stand? And what can they/we do, with either the insurer or the Prop Mgmt Co?

Edited by havoc on Thursday 19th January 14:37

[havoc]

Another update - looks like insurers starting to wash their hands of it - latest response is they'll send someone out "to see if property is habitable".

Habitable?!? Well, yes, if you want to be that vague about it, but it looks a f'n state and I'm not sure the lintel hasn't moved given the outer brickwork's no longer straight and the door/window surround is no longer square. (Wonder what the old dear living in the maisonette above would think about the lintel moving?!?)

Really don't need this sh't right now, too much else going on closer to home...

Any help/advice gratefully received...specifically around insurer duty-of-care* and/or freeholder responsibilities.




* My limited legal knowledge believes that strict legal form suggests it's due from the insurer to the freeholder as 'owner' of the building, but the broader substance of the matter suggests the long-leaseholder enjoys substantially all the benefits of ownership and has the greater financial interest in the property (the cost of the leasehold being close (~90%) to the cost of an equivalent freehold property). IANAL, though...

[havoc]

The Surveyor said:

Advice would be to go speak with a solicitor on this rather trying to do this yourself.

Probably. Except the person concerned can't afford a solicitor so it'd have to come out of my pocket up-front.

Want to find out right now who we should be going after:-
- the insurer under the duty-of-care route (which, if it flies, I think would be easier/quicker/less likely to get to court, as they're a big corporate who'll take a balance-of-probabilities view); or
- the freeholder, who are a property management company funded by leaseholder-paid charges - it's not their money / their problem, so I reckon they'll just ignore it / run it to court / be as awkward as possible, based on their actions to date.



Comments about being labelled a troublemaker are well-received, but in this instance the work is reminiscent of something Matt Allwright would investigate, so it was more a case of "oh look, here's another problem, let's take another photo"...and everyone seemed to be ignoring it except when I stepped-in each time. So a bit late for that maybe, but equally what other option did I have - need to go through the proper procedures with an insurer otherwise the ombudsman won't want to know / ditto the builders if it does come to court.

[havoc]

Thanks Paul.

Whether the PMC are "proper" or not is open to question - it appears to be run by one chap and a part-time administrator, from what we can see...but I suspect the principle stands - it's not his money / his problem, so he'll just ostrich until he gets a letter before action...and even that may not work.

(And yes, the work is dire - if you're at all interested I'll share the DropBox a/c with you / forward you a summary, but you've probably seen similar before...)