MattN

Or Nail Sickness ...

Cut a long story short.

Have a victorian flat. The roof is maintained by the management company.

Couple of tiles blew off 3 months ago and water came in through our ceiling.

When fixing the roof found it had Nail Sickness - whole roof needs replacing tens of thousands of pounds.

my arguement. It feasible it didn't rot overnight and there should have been a fund in place given that the property is 125 years old and a roof won't last forever.
As far as I'm aware they've (management co.) never inspect the roof so it's in a bad way now.

I'm saying that as leasholders we pay for the maintenance, fine, but they need to actually maintain the property and in this case they've failed to do so and have been negligent by letting the roof fall in to such a state of disrepair.

Anyone have any experience of this?

nooobyscoooby

There are alternatives.

Spray Applied Insulation and Stabilisation Foam - Renotherm Limited

These pople have been around quite a while and there are others.

They align/repair any tiles first and then spray the underside of the roof with sealant foam.

My Dad had his roof done 30 years ago - no problems. They were in and out in a couple of days with little or no mess either and there was no scaffolding, no time psent with the roof open to the elements.

MattN

Thanks I'll have a read.

r32

Replacing tiles along with the nails is not maintenance, the property owners are responsible........

MattN

I think it is maintenance. I have no problem with paying for maintenance. My beef is the roof has not been maintaned and therefore this repair is costing more than it should and in a short timespan. I.e. properly maintained the roof could have lasted longer meaning there was more time to build up a fund to pay for repairs.

Also of note the management company (which is a housing association as they own the freehold) charge a %age of costs as administration, so they benefit from higher repair bills!

Bubba po

How do you suggest that the roof could have been "maintained"? What has caused the decay of the nails? Is it purely the age of the roof? Copper, alloy or galvanised nails are used nowadays, but you can't replace a whole roof piecemeal over a period of time as part of "maintenance". When a roof covering reaches the end of its life as yours has due to the decay of the fixings you have to entirely strip it and do it again.

MattN

I'm not saying they should have replaced the roof as general maintenance. But given there are 3 seperate roofs (one on each wing) would suggest that they roof could have been replaced in 3 sections over time.

When tiles have come off in the past it's taken several months to get them replaced. Roof repairs should be carried out swiftly in my opinion.

Poor repairs which have failed and been re-repaired but again to a sub standard which was pointed out by the surveyor.

The discussions I had with the surveyor went along the lines "it's of that age so it needs doing". This to me says he/they knew it needed doing due to the age of the building. Again this means years ago they knew it would need doing.

I'm not against it being done. My question is is it reasonable to expect a fund to have been in place as they knew the roof was coming to the end of it's life and would more frequent inspections/swift repairs made any difference.

turbogav

Roofs can't be replaced as 'general maintenance'. If its a victorian property as you say then its done very well. Surely if your surveyor pointed it out prior to buying the property you should have investigated the financial position of the management company and the ability to pay for repairs / complete replacement prior to buying - its too late to complain now!