Water ingress - where could the problem be?

[diyyid]

My parents live in a maisonette on 2nd floor and there is another house on top. In December 2020 following a period of heavy rain, water started entering one of the rooms, with water dripping from the white window trim and surrounding areas.

Landlord has done a bunch of work to try and fix the problem - they redid the above house balcony which is directly above the bedroom, they applied waterproofing paint and did tests with coloured water to try and trigger the problem.

A few days ago, again after a period of heavy rain, water started dripping again from the same place, so basically back to square 1.

Back in summer 2020, they did some work which involved attaching scaffolding to the building and left behind holes which were not filled after work finished. Could this be the source of the problem? I can't find much information about it but it's a hole directly above the window area and surely can't be good for the building? They are called putlock holes according to Google

Couple of pictures - 1st one shows an attempt to look inside the leftover hole and 2nd shows it in relation to room - you can see internal damaged area in 2nd picture.

 

[Swwils]

Post a picture of the whole area including what's above the window

 

[^woody^]

It could be the scaffold restraint tie hole or just the bad design of that whole panel above and amuch more significant problem. Either way, its not your job to diagnose for the landlord.

Claim Statutory Nuisance at the local council (under section 82, EPA 1990), the landlord will then get 21 days to find and permanently fix the actual cause, not mess about with this or that, otherwise end up in the magistrates court. That's the quickest route to sorting it out. You can even make the claim as a visitor if you wanted to.

Cost of repairing internal decorations is part of the landlords responsibility too

Then if compensation is desired, claim under the tenancy agreement (L&T Act) - a potentially longer time period, the repair will still be ordered, and compensation from the time the problem started can be claimed. But even a letter of claim can prompt quick action.

Keep all records, times and dates, and names of people spoken to.

 

[diyyid]

Hi Woody, the information about Statutory Nuisance is definitely useful to know. We haven't taken any legal route yet as we expected the problem would be resolved by now following remedial works they did. We are expecting a visit from them in the next few days to take another look at the problem. The individual dealing with this now has gotten things moving leaps and bound compared to early 2021 when I was pulling my hair out and going round in circles so we are giving him a bit of leeway but having spoken with my siblings, they agree this is getting ridiculous now and so legal action will likely be the next step.

Agree it's not my job to diagnose but I'd like to be prepared and prompt them to potential issues they may overlook on their visit.

Onto the photos then...taken from the balcony and zoomed in

Room 1:

Room 2: