Question: Who fixes your leaking roof if you rent a flat from the Council, in a Council block, which the Council leases from a landlord who in turn is a leaseholder of Haringey Council?
Answer: Nobody, it seems.
This weekend I had a distressed call from a Stroud Green resident who can’t get anyone to fix her roof, which has been leaking for 2 months now. The damp is spreading throughout the flat, which can’t be nice with Christmas approaching. I’ve put in an urgent request to Homes for Haringey, but it all turns out to be much more complicated than I expected. The flat is ‘temporary’ accommodation leased from a leaseholder of Haringey Council. So the Council is leasing a flat it owns the freehold on.
A Homes for Haringey officer has got straight back to me – but they haven’t worked out yet whether it is the landlord’s or their responsibility to fix it.
I’ll try to keep up the pressure for someone to take responsibility - the poor tenant must be completely confused by all this.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
The inside of the flat is the leaseholders responsibility, the external is the council’s or in this case, HFH who’re the ALMO. It’s very clear and set out in the lease. If the leak is coming in from outside, the council need to repair it. However, getting HFH to do anything is an effort above and beyond.