Fellow Freeholder sharer being uncooperative.

[Green19]

Hi.
I live in a converted house of two flats. Mine is the downstairs flat. Myself and me neighbour upstairs bought the Share of Freehold between us about 4 years ago.

When I bought my flat 5 years ago, I was told that I had responsibility of the groundfloor and foundations, he had responsibility of the upstairs and the roof.

The problem is the neighbour upstairs is terrible at maintaining his property, so much so, a gutter has been leaking for a few years now and has caused significant damage to my property (the window sills are crumbling, there are cracks etc). You can see the direct line of where the gutter is broken and the damage it has caused. He has made no move to get it fixed despite my highlighting the damage that's it's caused.

We need to get the whole of the front of the house repainted and other masonary fixed and front door painted which has relatively light damage from normal wear and tear. I'm happy to go 50-50 on this of course, but feel its not right for me to have to pay for his lack of action regarding the gutter which has caused significant damage to my bay window masonary.

There is also an overflow pipe that keeps dripping from his flat and is hitting my exterior wall which is leading to damp too. He has been told about this and, again does nothing to fix it.

The irony of this is, he owns a building firm! He has produced some quotes to fix-up the front of the house and get the driveway block paved, however when I got other quotes to compare against, his quotes were very expensive in comparison. Essentially, it looks like he's looking to make a profit out of me. i also don't trust the quality of his workmanship. When re-landscaping his garden last year, his workmen tipped concrete down a joint drain at the side of the house which is also causing problems with the flow of water draining away in my flat.

I feel a bit trapped. When I suggested using a 3rd party to do the work, to keep things simple and neutral incase any recourse was to occur, he simply said he would be doing his part of the house through his own company what ever other quotes I got.

I have floated the idea of claiming off his insurance for the rain damage from the broken gutter, which he baulked at and said that won't be necessary - but has done nothing to sort it out.

Any advice you can give me. As I said he's quite a difficult man and has not a t all conscientious - several of the other neighbours have had run ins with him too.

Would appreciate any advice as to how to move forward on this as I'm at my wits end.

[brian]

Sounds like you may need to take legal advice about forcing him to complete his obligations, while also threatening for compensation for failure to carry out works.

Layman's opinion, though.