When you discover that a common area of your tenement building, such as the roof or external wall, needs to be repaired or improved, the first step is typically to contact all the other owners in the building. This is because, depending on what your titles say, all or some of the owners share responsibility for the common areas, and should contribute to the cost of the work.
However, some tenement owners fall at this first hurdle, because they struggle to get in touch with all the other owners in their building. This can be very tricky in a building where some of the flats are rented out by different private landlords, particularly if they rarely visit their properties or even live abroad.
In this article, we explore how to find other owners in your tenement building, to go through the common repairs process. There are several options available to the tenement owner who is willing to be persistent, once chapping on doors and asking for the contact details for the landlord has been unsuccessful. Charity organisation, Under One Roof, can be worthwhile contacting in the first instance, as they provide free, impartial information and support to tenement owners, and can help track down neighbours and landlords, to organise common repairs.
Register of Private Landlords and Letting Agencies
If you know that the other flats in your building are rented out, and you’ve been unsuccessful in getting their details from the tenant, your next port of call should be the landlord registration team of your local authority, or the Scottish Landlord Register, which is the official register of landlords of private rental properties in Scotland.
If using the official register, you can look up any property as long as you have its postcode, and the Register will show you the name of the property owner, any agents who work on their behalf, and details such as outstanding repairing standards enforcement orders. Landlords who are not registered are committing a criminal offence, and may face an up to £50,000 fine and a ban of up to five years on letting properties.
If you cannot find your fellow owner on the Register of Private Landlords, you can ask their tenants if they have a letting agent you can contact instead. Letting agents in Scotland are also required to register, and their Code of Guidance states that they must reply promptly to appropriate third parties, such as neighbours trying to organise a common repair.
Land Register
If you are looking for details of fellow owners, you can try using the Land Register to find their name. The Land Register contains information on all the registered property titles in Scotland, and you can buy a copy of a title sheet, which will include the name of the owner, for £3. Once you have the name, you can also look up other properties owned by that person, which may provide a home address for the landlord.
If the property is old, and has not been sold in a long time, its titles may be on the now outdated Sasine Register, rather than the Land Register. The Sasine Register is less accessible and more difficult to search, but at a cost of £30, staff from the Registers of Scotland may be able to help you. The Registers of Scotland are responsible for public registers of land, property, and other legal documents.
Empty Homes Officers and Private Sector Housing Teams
If you suspect the property is empty with no tenants in it, you might be able to get help from your local authority’s Empty Homes Officer. Not every local authority in Scotland has one, but their remit is to identify and investigate empty properties, and work with owners and developers to bring them back into use. If your local authority doesn’t have a dedicated Empty Homes Officer, you can contact the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership for information and support.
Not every local authority has an Empty Homes Officer, but they do all have some provision for supporting private sector homeowners. You can try contacting your local Private Sector Housing Team, who may be able to use the Council Tax Register to send a message to the registered council tax payee, and alert them that you are trying to get in touch about a repair.
Legal Advice and Private Detectives
Finally, if all these options have proven fruitless, you may consider hiring a private detective, or hiring a lawyer to carry out an ownership search. These options may be very expensive, but in some cases could be worth it. For example, if you need to contact a neighbour about a very expensive and urgent roof repair, where there is a lot of money at stake, it could be necessary to seek legal advice or the help of a private detective to find them.
To find out more about tracing an absent owner, and other information helpful when trying to organise repairs, visit the Under One Roof website.
