Flats & Apartment Blocks

Communal roofs, converted houses and top-floor leaks — with the responsibility question untangled first.

Flats put a roof over the most people and the most awkward questions. Purpose-built blocks — common across Birmingham, Luton and London, and increasingly in the new quarters of Milton Keynes and Aylesbury — usually carry large flat or shallow roofs in felt, asphalt or single-ply. Converted Victorian houses, the other great flat-maker, keep their original pitched slate with all the habits described on our terraces page, plus a top-floor flat directly under every one of them.

The leak is the easy part

Technically, this is work we know well: flat roof repairs, full re-covering in EPDM or GRP, parapet leadwork, outlets and upstands — details that fail more often than the roof field itself. The distinctive part is everything around the work: identifying who's responsible (the roof is almost always the freeholder's or management company's, funded through the service charge — the top-floor leaseholder rarely owes for it personally, however wet their ceiling), reporting in a form a managing agent can act on, and working on an occupied building with proper notice, tidy access and no surprises for residents.

Who we work for

Leaseholders who need the problem evidenced so the freeholder acts; freeholders and managing agents who need surveys, photographs and itemised quotations for Section 20-style consultation; and small blocks that self-manage and just want it fixed properly. In every case the report says what's wrong, whose roof zone it's in, and what it costs — in writing, with pictures.

Repair options

Repair or replace

Communal flat roofs age in public: every leaseholder pays, so every decision gets questioned. Our rule is to price the genuine options side by side — patch this failure, overlay the covering, or strip and renew — with the realistic life of each, so a building can choose eyes-open rather than defaulting to the cheapest patch every year until the deck rots.

Our process

How we do it

Occupied blocks get planned differently: access agreed with the agent, residents notified before scaffold or hoist arrives, working hours kept civilised and escape routes never blocked. On conversions we also check the roof voids between flats — where the original house's roof timbers now belong to everyone and get inspected by no one.

Common questions

Frequently asked

My top-floor flat has a leak — do I pay for the roof repair? +

Usually not directly: in most leases the roof belongs to the freeholder or management company, funded through the service charge, and your route is reporting it with evidence rather than commissioning it yourself. Check your lease. Where we help most is making the report undeniable — photographs, the located fault and a quotation the agent can act on.

The managing agent keeps patching the same roof — is that wrong? +

Not necessarily; patching a roof with life left is sound economics. It goes wrong when patches become annual and the money spent starts rivalling renewal — which is precisely what our side-by-side pricing is for. A block that can see patch costs against overlay and renewal costs, with expected lifespans, can make the grown-up call.

Can you survey a block's roof without disturbing residents? +

Mostly, yes. Flat roofs with safe access are surveyed from the roof itself; pitched conversions from ladders, a camera pole or a drone where appropriate. We'd only need interior access to trace a specific leak into a flat — and that gets arranged with the occupant, not sprung on them.