I am a leaseholder living within a 4-story terraced house. Us leaseholders are obviously responsible for exterior mending and decoration, and about every 6 years the scaffolding goes up and this is carried out. It's one of those typical Georgian seaside terraced houses, so it needs its regular magnolia painting and all sorts of maintenance that you would expect with such an old terrace by the sea.
A couple of years ago the freeholder sold the somewhat dilapidated garage at the back of the ground floor flat's garden to a developer, who has now turned it into a little 'house'. Prior to this there was a passageway no more than about three foot wide where we could access the road behind the house, so if the rear of the building needed attention then scaffolding and workmen could come in through there. Even though the freeholder could've left that space open for us she chose not to, as obviously that would have meant less money from the developer.
It's now time to see to the back of our building. Now that this passageway is gone, we are blocked in and the worst case scenario is we would need to pay for a crane to lift the scaffolding up and over from the front, over the roof, and the workmen, along with their debris, would have to pass back and forth through the ground floor flat, for a period that would last for weeks.
This is going to cost us about 5 times what it would have cost otherwise, not to mention the inconvenience and inevitable damage that will be done to the flat on the ground floor, and the misery for that tenant having to live there whilst all this is going on around him.
I'm assuming the worst here, in that it's just 'tough luck' and there's nothing we can do, in terms of holding the freeholder accountable for any of this additional expense. It's in our lease to carry out these works regularly, but she has just gone and done something that is going to make this extremely costly and inconvenient for all of us.
Any views?
A couple of years ago the freeholder sold the somewhat dilapidated garage at the back of the ground floor flat's garden to a developer, who has now turned it into a little 'house'. Prior to this there was a passageway no more than about three foot wide where we could access the road behind the house, so if the rear of the building needed attention then scaffolding and workmen could come in through there. Even though the freeholder could've left that space open for us she chose not to, as obviously that would have meant less money from the developer.
It's now time to see to the back of our building. Now that this passageway is gone, we are blocked in and the worst case scenario is we would need to pay for a crane to lift the scaffolding up and over from the front, over the roof, and the workmen, along with their debris, would have to pass back and forth through the ground floor flat, for a period that would last for weeks.
This is going to cost us about 5 times what it would have cost otherwise, not to mention the inconvenience and inevitable damage that will be done to the flat on the ground floor, and the misery for that tenant having to live there whilst all this is going on around him.
I'm assuming the worst here, in that it's just 'tough luck' and there's nothing we can do, in terms of holding the freeholder accountable for any of this additional expense. It's in our lease to carry out these works regularly, but she has just gone and done something that is going to make this extremely costly and inconvenient for all of us.
Any views?
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