Selling a Flat with a Leak

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Leaks, where water enters your flat or someone else’s home in a block of flats, can have a number of causes such as faulty appliances or a damaged roof. Whatever the reason, the fact there’s a leak can sometimes make it harder to find a buyer for the property. This guide outlines how to sell a flat with a leak, including steps to make a speedy sale more likely.

1. Different ways that your flat might have a leak
2. Who is responsible when there’s a leak in your flat?
3. How a leak in your flat can complicate selling it
4. Should you repair a leak before selling your flat?
5. Your options for trying to sell a flat with a leak
6. Top questions about selling a flat that has a leak

Different ways that your flat might have a leak

If you own a flat, it will typically be one of several such properties within a block of flats. They’re often found in city centres but can also be located in suburbs, rural areas and elsewhere. Sometimes flats are just single units, for example those situated above a commercial building.

Whatever your type of flat, it might be susceptible to leaks, which happen when water is able to enter the property and potentially cause damage. This can be naturally occurring rainwater that leaks into a flat due to weather damage, water inside a block of flats caused by some problem in the building, and the resulting harm to the home can range from small to significant. Below are some of the most common reasons for why your flat might have a developed a leak.

Roof damage: For those people who own flats on the top of their buildings, leaks can occur in their ceilings if the roof of the overall property has any damage or is poorly maintained. That can create an opening for rainwater to enter the top flat, and if it’s not stopped this water can then accumulate and start to seep down through lower floors in the block of flats.

Flooding: If your property is situated in an area that’s at high risk of flooding, and the flat is at or below ground below in its building, leaks could be the result of damage whenever a flood happens. If there’s a deluge of floodwater, it can seep into properties, particularly those on lower ground.

Faulty appliances: There are several devices in most flats that are connected to water pipes, such as dishwashers and washing machines. If these are not installed properly, or if they malfunction for any reason, they can leak water that has the potential to either spill out into your flat, or cause issues further down along the pipeline by leaking into someone else’s flat.

Plumbing problems: Although this covers some leaking issues associated with badly installed or operating appliances, plumbing leaks can be caused by many other factors, such as clogged drains, corroded water pipes inside the block of flats, ineffective grout or another type of sealant in your bathroom or the bathroom of another flat in the building, and burst radiator pipes.

Who is responsible when there’s a leak in your flat?

Depending on the source of the leak in your flat and who owns the property and the building in which it’s located, the responsibility for the resulting damage could be yours or someone else’s. The answer of who exactly is responsible will hinge on exactly what type of leak has occurred and the damage it caused.

In many cases, a block of flats will be owned by a freeholder who has the absolute legal right of ownership of the building and the land on which it is situated. The individual flats are sold as leasehold units, which means that their owners have possession of their units for a specified number of years whilst paying a ground rent to the freeholder of the block of flats. They have no ownership over the building itself, which can put the burden on the freeholder to fix leaks. This can be more difficult if you have an absent freeholder – be sure to read our guide on selling with an absent freeholder for further information.

Citizens Advice, a network of UK charities that offers free advice on a host of topics to the public, notes that the question of who is responsible for responding to a leak in a flat can be complicated and take some time to resolve.

If the leak is due to a problem with the overall block of flats that is nevertheless causing damp or other negative impacts in your home – such as a badly maintained roof – it makes it more likely that the freeholder will be seen as liable for the problem and required to correct it. Hopefully, you will have a responsive and honest freeholder who is willing to act fast to address the issue. But you should be prepared that the building owner may also try to avoid this responsibility, and sometimes flat owners have to resort to the letter of the law in order to force them to fix a problem.

However, you should also be ready to accept that the leak could have been caused by something that is the result of an action taken within your flat, for example if you made an error when installing a washing machine and that has resulted in leaks in your home or the flat below. In those cases, it’s likely that you will be deemed to be responsible for the leak and its damage.

How a leak in your flat can complicate selling it

When there’s a leak in your flat, it can create extra hurdles to selling the property because you will have to decide whether to invest in repairing the problem, pressuring the building leaseholder to fix the issue if it’s there responsibility, or trying to find a buyer selling the home As Is with the leak, which means that you do not take any steps to address the situation. It can be more complicated if you are selling a rental property with a leak so be sure to read our other guide on this topic.

Potential buyers could be hesitant to make an offer on a flat that has a leak, because the water damage that happens from leaks can lead to damp and related issues which might cause health problems for people living in the property. You should be prepared for some buyers to decide that any past leak is enough reasons to lose interest in buying your home.

Even if the leak is repaired, or was nothing to do with anything in your flat, there are certain prospective buyers who might still think that one leak is too many. They might have concerns that the situation could reoccur, and this is enough for them to no longer want your property. There is very little that you can do in response, so you should focus on finding another buyer.

Should you repair a leak before selling your flat?

One issue that many people who own flats that have a leak must consider is whether to repair the problem before trying to sell it, and there’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer for this.

If you live in the penthouse flat of your property, which means the home on the top floor, usually with the largest square footage and best amenities, fixtures and fittings, you might want to think about repairing any leak that has been caused by a fault with the building’s roof before trying to find a buyer.

For those situations where the leak is considered a problem for the freeholder of the block of flats, hopefully you will be able to ask them to move swiftly on funding repair work. In cases where the freeholder tries to deny their liability, you may have to decide between taking legal action, or accepting they’ll do nothing, and selling the home in its current state.

In scenarios where the leak can be traced to an issue in your flat, usually you will be liable for the problem and any damage it causes in your home and other properties in the block of flats. If that’s the case, you may feel it necessary to invest in costly repair work before selling.

But the amount of money, effort and time that might be required for fixing the leak and any associated damage could be far beyond your budget. If that’s the case, then you should not create financial problems for yourself by spending more funds than you have on repair work. Instead, there are options for selling the flat "as is" fast, such as contacting a quick property buyer who will not look negatively at the property just because it has had a leak.

Unless the leak is a direct result of something that you have done wrong in your flat and that is causing damage to other homes within the block of flats, you should typically be under no legal obligation to invest in work to stop the leak and repair the harm it caused.

Your options for trying to sell a flat with a leak

Regardless of whether you try to fix the leak in your flat before selling it, when you’re ready to find a buyer for your property, you’ll generally have four ways to try achieving this.

The options are selling via an estate agent, selling through an auctioneer, selling to a quick home buyer, or selling by yourself. You’ll find that there are specific pros that come with all four of these methods, and also some clear negatives associated with a few of these approaches, such as requiring you to pay expensive commission or taking many months to find a buyer.

In order to help you decide on the ideal choice for your unique needs and wants, it can be useful to prepare a budget for the sale of your flat that lists key issues such as how long you’re prepared to wait to sell, the amount of commission that you’re prepared to pay, and more. Check these factors against the selections below to find the one that is right for you.

Selling a flat via an estate agent

Estate agents take on the responsibility for most of the effort required for selling your flat, starting with preparing a listing that features photographs and a description of the property, advertising the listing in local newspapers, in their offices, and online, organising and leading viewings where prospective buyers can tour the inside and outside of your flat, and hearing offers from people interested in the property, hopefully through to exchange of contracts.

In exchange for all of this work, an estate agent will charge commission. This fee will be taken out of the sale proceeds immediately, so you would have to accept receiving a reduced amount of net profit.

Selling through an estate agent is often far from the speediest option, because it might take many months or even more than an entire year in certain worst case scenarios. If your main target when selling your flat is finding a buyer as quickly as you can, you should look at other options.

Selling a flat through an auctioneer

Alternatively, you might want to think about trying your luck with an auction when selling your flat with a leak. In this scenario, when the auction occurs people will place bids on the price that they want to pay for your property. Your goal is to have many potential buyers interested who try to outbid each other, which will drive the sale price up.

Just remember that you might not get any bids on your flat, which means that it does not sell, and you’ll have to begin again trying to find a buyer, adding further delay to the schedule.

The auctioneer will prepare and advertise the listing for your flat, and you will be asked to select what’s known as a reserve price – this is the lowest price at which you can accept selling your property. Be careful to choose a reserve price that works for you, even after you subtract whatever commission that auctioneer will charge for their work. You should typically aim to avoid either making a loss on the sale of your flat or only just breaking even.

Typically, auctioneers impose fees based on the final sale price for a property, but some companies might charge higher or lower commission. You can ask individual companies whether they may be willing to lower their fees, or make the buyer pay for some of these costs.

Selling at an auction can take quite a long time, because there will be a delay of several weeks at least between when you first list the flat for sale and when the auction occurs. And if your property does successfully sell, the winning high bidder will then have an average of 28 days to complete their paperwork and other steps to finalise the purchase.

It’s possible that some auctioneers might be willing to negotiate a shorter timeline for the buyer to finalise the sale, so you should inquire with specific companies whether this can be done.

Selling a flat to a quick home buyer

Another way to sell your home is contacting a quick home buyer, like LDN Properties, a London-based company that gives owners a no-hassle, streamlined and zero-stress way to get speedy and competitive offers for selling their flats or houses in locations around the UK.

These companies have the funds available to make instant purchases of properties, because they do not have to wait many weeks or months to initially get approved for a mortgage that would cover the cost of the sale. This reduces the typical timeline for completing the sale to just a few short weeks, and that covers exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds. You’ll find that this is usually the swiftest and most straightforward to sell any type of property.

A great advantage of quick buyers is that they will consider making offers on almost any type of property, and the age, condition, shape or size doesn’t matter – such as homes with structural problems like a flat with a leak. Other varied purchases that LDN Properties has made or considered making include new build flats, student properties, listed buildings, houses of multiple occupancy, flats that have current tenants with very lengthy rental agreements remaining, dilapidated properties, commercial premises, houses with subsidence, student homes, houses located near to mobile phone masts, and more. LDN Properties can also assist if you are selling commercial property including nursing homes and warehouses.

If you are considering selling during a recession, another key advantage of using a quick buyer is that the legitimate companies will not make you pay any fees when purchasing your flat. That’s because they believe that homeowners should always get to keep the full proceeds when selling, compared to estate agents or auctioneers that will charge you fees that are taken out of the sale proceeds, which reduces your net profit.

When trying to select a quick home buyer to use, you should ask individual companies if they are registered with The Property Ombudsman (TPO), which is a third party entity that writes regulations to protect homeowners against possible fraud in the speedy buying industry. All genuine TPO members must adhere to those rules, which gives you extra peace of mind.

You can check the registration status of an individual quick home buyer by visiting TPO’s website and then clicking on the “Find a member” tab located on the left side of the welcome page. You’ll be prompted to type in the name of a specific company, and if they’re genuinely registered with TPO, you should then be able to see their full membership details.

Be cautious of selling your flat or any other type of property to a quick buyer that either claims to be a TPO member but cannot prove this, or that refuses to join TPO, because this could be a scam.

Selling a flat by yourself

Yet another choice you have is trying to sell your flat with a leak without assistance from a third party, such as an auctioneer or estate agent. If you pursue this option, you will be required to prepare and market a listing for your flat, organising and take care of viewings, and hear offers from potential buyers, along with hopefully seeing a serious offer through to completion.

The clear benefit of selling on your own is that you will not be required to pay commission to anyone else for finding a buyer for the flat, so there will be no fees taken out of the sale proceeds.

But this can be perhaps the slowest way to sell a property, particularly one with a leak, and you might be waiting more than an entire year before you receive a serious offer.

As an alternative, you might want to think about selling to a quick home buyer because you’ll get a speedy sale without having to pay any fees, but with none of the stress of selling solo, because they’ll provide a streamlined way to sell your property without any hassle.

Top queries and answers about selling a flat with a leak

Flat owners thinking of selling their flat quickly may have some questions for us, ranging from the repairs needed before selling through to selling an uninhabitable property. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a flat with a leak: