If you are looking to carry out major repairs in your tenement building, such as fixing a leaking roof, you might find it a worthwhile but expensive project, as the cost of labour and materials in the construction sector continues to rise. Carrying out repairs is crucial to keeping buildings safe and liveable, but the costs can put tenement owners off.
While funding for repairs in tenement buildings is quite rare, there may be some options available to you, depending on your location, the type of project you wish to carry out, and your personal circumstances.
This article will explore the financing options available for repairs, including self-funding through working with your neighbours, support from local authorities, and help from heritage organisations.
Working with your neighbours
Often, the easiest way to ensure you have money for repairs to common areas of your building is to co-operate with your neighbours. In ‘common’ areas such as the roof, foundations or external walls, the owners of the building share a responsibility for the cost of repairs, because they share the use of that area. Therefore, one of the best ways to fund common repairs is to save together.
Organising and paying for common repairs is very difficult without an owners’ association. Since owners’ associations have formal constitutions and rules, they can make decision-making and communication much easier than working alone. If you are not already part of an owners’ association, join one or set one up in your building.
Some banks offer accounts that may be suitable for owners’ associations, to assist with pooling money and paying for repairs together. These may be called ‘charity’ ‘community’ or ‘clubs and societies’ accounts depending on the bank, and will usually require the owners’ association to be fully constituted, with two members’ names and signatures required to withdraw funds.
If you do not already have a property manager or factor, you may consider co-operating with your neighbours to appoint one. A factor can act on the owners’ behalf, and can make it easier to manage repairs and finances. They may hold floats, maintenance funds or building reserve funds, to which all the owners contribute to pay for future repairs, which can be a good way of ensuring that money is available when you need it. Before appointing a factor, check that they are registered under the Property Factors (Scotland) Act.
Support from local authorities
Every local authority in Scotland, under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, is required to publish a Scheme of Assistance statement, setting out the practical assistance and information they provide to private homeowners. The type of assistance they provide, and how much money they allocate towards it, depends upon the priorities of the local authority, but you may find that there is funding available for your repair, depending on your circumstances and location. For instance, some councils offer a Care and Repair service which provides free information and low-cost repairs for homeowners who are disabled or over 60 years old. Other councils offer small grants for tenement buildings in priority areas, such as town centres, or for buildings which are in serious disrepair. It is always worth contacting your local authority to see what support may be available.
If you have spoken with your neighbours about organising repairs in a common area of your building, such as the roof, and some of your fellow owners are unable or unwilling to pay their share, you may be eligible for your local authority’s Missing Shares scheme. This involves the local authority paying the owner’s missing share, and then recovering the cost from them once the work has been completed, or when the property is sold.
Each local authority in Scotland is different, and not all offer a Missing Shares scheme. Where they are available, homeowners will need to demonstrate that they have followed specific procedures before applying, and local authorities might only pay into a joint maintenance account which has to be set up by all the owners in the building. There are hoops to jump through, but Missing Shares schemes can be a good option if the refusal of one owner to pay their share is slowing down your repairs project.
Historic buildings
Finally, if you live in a historic building, consider reaching out to your local heritage trust or historic buildings trust, as they sometimes have grants available for repair projects in buildings which meet that criteria.
While funding for repair projects can be difficult to source, there are some options available for tenement owners. Under One Roof, Scotland’s charity dedicated to offering information and support to tenement owners, has recently published a toolkit to help tenement owners understand the options available to them. Written by housing consultant Gillian Campbell, with funding from The MCS Foundation, this toolkit is available from the Under One Roof website.
