Repairs responsibilities for shared owners or leaseholders

As a home owner you are responsible for all repairs and day to day maintenance of your home. If you live in a flat, we are responsible for repairs and maintenance to communal areas such as corridors, stairways, communal entrances, TV aerials, lifts, roofs and gutters.

We will carry out the work, but you are responsible for covering the cost, either through your service charge or through a one-off payment.

The table below sets out responsibility for some typical repairs within a block of flats.

If you live in a house, you are fully responsible for all repairs and maintenance to the whole of your home, however, there are exceptions if your home is subject to the New Shared Ownership Model lease which you will have been advised of when you purchased it.

Type of repair	Our responsibility	Your responsibility
Stopcocks in your block or building	Yes	No
Stopcocks in your flat	No	Yes
Burst of leaking pipes up to and including the main stopcock	Yes	No
Burst or leaking pipes beyond the main stopcock	No	Yes
Communal water storage tanks	Yes	No
Water storage tanks in your flat	No	Yes
Bath, basin, sink, taps WC, and waste pipe traps	No	Yes
Clearing a blockage to main soil stack, rain water pipes and gutters	Yes	No
Windows in shared areas	Yes	No
Windows in flats	Depends on lease	Depends on lease
Doors to shared areas	Yes	No
Front door of your flat	No	Yes
Electricity supply in shared areas (including internal and external lighting, rewiring, door entry systems)	Yes	No
Electricity supply inside your flat	No	Yes
Roof	Yes	No
External walls	Yes	No
Plaster in shared areas	Yes	No
Plaster inside your flat	No	Yes
Decorating shared areas	Yes	No
Decorating inside your flat	No	Yes
Maintaining external shared gardens, roads (if not public highway and parking areas)	No	Yes
Maintaining private gardens	No	Yes
T.V aerials (shared system) shared gardens, roads	Yes	No
T.V aerials to your flat only shared gardens, roads	No	Yes
Building insurance	Yes	No
Contents insurance	No	Yes