I am hoping you can advise us on how best to act in relation to the damp wall in a property we recently bought. The wall was identified as damp by our surveyor but rather than rising damp it is restricted to a specific part of the wall in the hall and the cause has been identified as a neighbour’s extension that is sub-standard and is causing water ingress/damp to this wall in our house.
With rainfall, the damp is significant and needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Can you advise on how we might approach our neighbour (they are renting so it would be the landlord we need to contact) and what our best course of action might be in this situation? We are already planning for an inspection of the extension, with permission.
Andrew O'Gorman writes: Ongoing damp ingress issues in properties will result in considerable deterioration, possible timber decay and degradation of finishes. It is a requirement of building regulations that properties should be designed and constructed so as to prevent such ingress of moisture.
From the information in your question, your neighbour is remiss in allowing for this issue to arise and affect your property directly due to their “substandard” construction methods.
The damp issue should be tackled as a matter of urgency and I recommend the following course of action:
– While your surveyor has identified the likely source, you need to know for certain that the damp issue is actually resulting from your neighbour’s property; it would be embarrassing if it was found to be coming from another source.
– Contact the owner of the property and inform them of the ongoing issues. Ask your surveyor if they are agreeable to you sharing their report with the owner.
– Meet the owner at the property. I recommend you have your surveyor present to discuss the issues.
– Politely ask the owner to repair the issue. You could also go one step further and ask them to confirm the level of repairs they propose to carry out, although this information may not be forthcoming. I recommend you engage your surveyor to maintain a professional watching brief on the repairs.
If, on the other hand, the owner is not prepared to engage with you and ignores your request to carry out repairs, I recommend you inform them in writing of the issues. It is important to maintain records in these situations.
If the owner refuses to repair the defect, then it might be worth exploring the option of you contributing to having the defect repaired. This may encourage your neighbour to undertake the works. However, this is not the ideal solution, but you may be left with no alternative.
If all lines of communication fail with the owner, then you may have to seek legal advice to compel them to complete the necessary repairs.
I hope the owner does the right thing when informed and engages with you immediately so that the matter can be resolved quickly.
