crackingup

It's unfair that property owners have their premiums hiked or their property value diminished by a subsidence claim if fixed properly, but as 'too good to be true' questions, how do you ensure your insurer does a sufficient job to remedy the damage etc. In our particular case, the threat of trees causing tree root exacerbated subsidence was flagged in my neighbour's survey back in 2002 which she subsequently flagged to Southwark Council on numerous occasions, Southwark being both the freeholder and the local authority to a street property. Southwark did nothing but ignore correspondence including mine saying in 2008 that there was damage to the boundary wall, please investage. 2009 cracking spread to the building; doors dropping, windows jamming, bay window structure moving and water ingress. At present we have our insurers saying they will only pay to rectify the damage (drains, brickwork, plasterwork, painting, glass repairs) and Southwark as freeholder wanting to underpin and recharge to us via their service charge as the insurance co won't pay for it. FYI it transpires if Southwark is your freeholder they only 'self-insure' meaning that if repairs are required to the structure i.e freehold of your building, and it is an insured peril, they have to arrange the repairs and suffer the cost of repairs for any flats they own out of their own pocket (excess of ?750k). Leaseholders are insured for their contribution towards said repairs, but again it depends on what the insurer is prepared to pay towards and what Southwark want to do. Over the past four years they have tried to charge us through the annual service charge for subsidence related repairs and ignore emails to have these charges removed and forwarded onto the insurer. Southwark have no interest in repairing damage to freehold properties given their ?750k excess, interstingly no mention of this in the leases or their summary insurance booklet made available to leaseholders; in our case they only got interested after my neighbour filed a complaint with the local government ombudsman. Massive flaw in Southwark's right to buy scheme and properties being bought by original tenants/second/third purchasers. In summary, don't buy a property near a big tree...

Hi I'm not on Pellatt but Copleston and we've had it. Trees were the culprit - council failing to pollard them.

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- "The > council isnt very good at managing such standalone > properties for tenants and is really bad for > leaseholders. So selling such properties and > concentrating on estates makes sense to the > housing department." James, are you able to help leaseholders in any way? My neighbour and I are leaseholders and have been through Southwark's three stage corporate complaints procedure to no avail. We are trying to get the council to repair the building after subsidence damage, it is insured but for whatever reason, they have been incapable of arranging the repairs. Because it relates to the freehold, the old insurers won't let us leaseholders arrange the repairs. It's been going on for three years now and we are beyond despair. I've emailed Peter John but he never replies.