Our Shared Roof is Leaking

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6 Sep 2013
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Oxfordshire
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United Kingdom
I wonder if anyone can offer advice please?

We live in a terraced house, and unusually we share a pitched roof with our neighbour. The top one third of the roof lies over the neighbour's kitchen extension, and the bottom two thirds is over our kitchen extension.

The roof leaks when it rains. We have had a roofer look over it, and he replaced all the misaligned and broken tiles on our part of the roof to try to stop the leak, but without success. He commented that the tiles on the neighbour's roof are in a worse condition than ours, and so the leaks could be getting in under their tiles, running down the felt, and getting into the kitchen through any holes in the felt. He also said that the felt (which is the old bitumen type) is old and deteriorating, and that ideally we should have the roof refelted.

Our neighbour is a commercial enterprise, not a private home owner. We approached them about it, and they keep saying they will send someone to look at the roof, but so far they haven't. We think they're not too keen to have it done. We've suggested that we pay for the scaffolding and for two thirds of the roofing cost, if they want to just pay their third, but they still don't seem too enthusiastic.

So we're wondering a couple of things. Do we have a legal right to ask the neighbours to fix their part of the roof? Or alternatively, could we do something to stop the water running from their roof into our ceiling, like install a gutter in our roof just underneath the neighbour's part to catch the water, and then have just our roof refelted? My hubby's idea:-; I know it would look a bit unusual, but maybe that would do the trick?

Any advice very welcome!

Many thanks.
 
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There are ways to re-do your side of the roof whilst maintaining a definite water stop betwixt you and them.

Inform the neighbour that you will do this whilst stating that a dry valley/gutter will be installed as a break between properties and all of his tiles made good up to the gutter.
 
Thank you for your reply, that's a great help (and a big relief!) , we'll talk to a few roofers about getting that done.
 
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Yes costwold builders, sorry I didn't make that clear did I, their roof is above ours and so all the water on the roof drains down to our part.
 
You can only install a bonding gutter if the roof is adjacent to yours.

And you dont get your roof retiled because the felt is perished.

Get a decent roofer.
 
So we couldn't use a gutter to stop the water from seeping into our roof from above? Is there anything else we could have installed ensure the water from above flows over the top of our tiles and not underneath them?
 
If its as bad as you say, it probably needs a complete strip, new felt, battens.
If the tiles are in poor condition, new tiles as well.

The neighbour should share the costs.
 
Yes costwold builders, sorry I didn't make that clear did I, their roof is above ours and so all the water on the roof drains down to our part.
Sorry, yeah misunderstood, thought they were on the same plane.
 
I agree Costwold builders, they should make a contribution. And we've offered to pay for the scaffolding and time it takes the roofers to set up, etc., so they'd only have to pay for their third of the roof. We're still plugging away on that one:-;
 
Just a question - what fire separation means exist between your properties under the shared roof?

In other words, if you had a fire, would not smoke and fire damage their property and vice versa?

I don't know the legal situation here, but if this situation exists, I am guessing it could seriously affect any insurance policies, mortgages and liability of the owners on either side of the boundary.
 

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