Clarence Drive is falling down...

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Postby crusty_bint » Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:10 pm

You've cracked it RK (no pun intended), I couldn't recall a frost recently so didnt mention it... that'll certainly do it tho!
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Postby Simba » Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:10 pm

crusty_bint wrote:Looks like water ingress to me, most probably a long-standing problem exacerbated by the last couple of weeks WET weather. Looks horrific, but may not actually be that bad!


Prepare for GUL to fall down shortly...
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Postby crusty_bint » Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:15 pm

If thats Glasgow Uni Library then Im none too fussed... :wink:
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Re: LIVE! from Partickhill...

Postby Socceroo » Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:29 pm

red_kola wrote:Not a lot to see to be honest:
Image


Yep having seen the photo's such as red kola's above it does look like water damage, certainly not settlement given that the Sandstone has delaminated halfway up the building.

Note the position of the relatively old Rainwater Pipes. Could have been that there was a wee leak or two which could have helped it on it's way.

Wonder if it happened when someone banged shut the Larder Cupboard door.... :D
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Postby ghiribizzo » Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:55 pm

...and what if you'd, er, 'forgotten' to renew your Buildings Insurance like you promised the mortgage lender.

Er...
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Postby Mark N » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:14 pm

ghiribizzo wrote:...and what if you'd, er, 'forgotten' to renew your Buildings Insurance like you promised the mortgage lender.


Isn't it the case that in a tenement the BI is included in what each resident has to pay the factor ? i.e. there wouldn't be the option of forgetting it. Or am I misunderstanding what a factor does ?
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clarence drive

Postby SusanR » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:44 pm

yip, but what if like in the building I'm in one owner just does not pay their bills, and yet again we are in the position of trying to find yet another factor.When the owners overdue account gets too much the factor wants out ( quite correctly).Also think a lot of people just want to fix what they see or what causes a problem to their own flat. :?
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Postby ghiribizzo » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:23 pm

When I stayed in Southpark Drive in Paisley, we didn't have a 'factor' - they got out when they sold the flats. It was left up to the 6 flat owners. You always kinda wondered 'what if...'
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Re: clarence drive

Postby onyirtodd » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:29 pm

SusanR wrote:yip, but what if like in the building I'm in one owner just does not pay their bills, and yet again we are in the position of trying to find yet another factor.When the owners overdue account gets too much the factor wants out ( quite correctly).Also think a lot of people just want to fix what they see or what causes a problem to their own flat. :?


If you're looking for a factor, don't forget to ask your local housing association. Some will take on property where they don't have tennants, they're usually easy to deal with and don't have the burdensome profit motive of many traditional factors.
238 to 127. All in all a good afternoon's work
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Postby ozneil » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:37 pm

I assume that the tenement was built around turn of 20th centuary or at latest within first 2 decades of it.

Looking at pics, all I have to go by, it would appear that the red sandstone facing has come adrift from inner skin of wall. This could be caused by the ties rusting through caused by ingress of damp, (leaking rainwater pipe, bad pointing etc) also saturating the sandstone. If water froze in sandstone it would make outer skin bulge out as it expanded till it collapsed . It doesn't look like subsidence . It would appear from pics gutters have been recently renewed so in all probability old gutters had been leaking for ages. I cant quite make it out but there does appeat to be water staining above the damage.

With the size of photos it is very hard to tell & I could well & truly wrong!
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Postby escotregen » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:02 pm

On building insurance, don't forget that a standard requirement on mortgages is that you have building insurance. Mortgage lenders are always pushing (sorry advising) borrowers to use one of the lender's 'recommended' insurance companies i.e. the companies that pay the best commissions to the lenders.

This means that it's common for young and/or first time borrowers to unwittingly have double insurance; once through the mortgage lenders and another through the factor. You can decide which one is best value to you and tell the other you are cancelling the policy, so long a you provide evidence that you have alternative insurance.

This advice has saved many folks money over the years. It's interesting to see the sometimes almost aggressive and threatening attitude taken by the lender/factor whose policy you are cancelling – it makes telling them to get stuffed all the more satisfying.

The one thing to watch for is that there may be a sneaky factor's clause demanding that all residents must insure with them. I'm not sure that this is not an illegal restraint of trade and it might make an interesting test case.

'Self-factoring' has always been possible. It was made much more workable by the Tenements Reform Act, one of the first Acts passed by the Scottish Parliament after devolution. Glasgow District Council used to give excellent advice and provide a whole guidance booklet on this, and may still do. Housing Asociations are good factors, but they tend to be 'over the top' and very and expensive in what they do, although if they offer 'block' insurance that can be very competitive.

On the building collapse, I think that Socceroo in his knowledgeable way has got it right. I agree that it looks like a build up of water penetration and that the locations of the gutter and rhone pipes are telling. Could also be that renovation or repair work has taken place over recent years and inappropriate stone or cement instead of mortar has been used – maybe also some water ingress from the pretty awful, insensitive, window replacement has been undertaken, presumably by individual owners.
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clarence lane

Postby SusanR » Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:35 pm

Do you ever think we trust the honesty and integrity of lenders / factors and builders too much ?Also Herald today said that there had been a meeting about the state of the wall a few days prior - I wonder how many of the residents actually attended ?Will the insurance pay up if they admit being negligent re upkeep?
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Postby crusty_bint » Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:39 pm

If the factor had been informed of the problem prior to the collapse, regardless of whether or not the tennants/occupiers could reach a resolution, then the insurance will pay out without any problem . However, if the residents knew of the problem and did not inform the factor then there could be accusations of negligence with the collapse happening through willfull inaction. I'm sure the insurance will pay out regardless though as if the problem isn't fixed soon it could put the whole tenement structure in jeapoardy.
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Postby viceroy » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:26 pm

My own experience of factors over the course of many years has led me to the conclusion that they are a waste of space, far more interested in whatever prestige developments they are involved with than the closes they have on their books.

Having said this, I am also sceptical of self-factoring as an alternative. Maybe this works among middle class tenement dwellers in the West End. However in my opinion the vast majority of owners don't give a toss about common maintenance. The sheer pigheadedness and wilful ignorance I have come across in this respect over the years is absolutely staggering. Most of them genuinely don't think it has anything to do with them. They will spend large sums of money on their own flats, yet plead poverty whenever they are asked to share the cost of even the most menial repairs. I have given up trying to convince people that a reasonable sum of cash spent on preventive maintenance in the present is the way to avoid huge bills when things get so bad that they have to be attended to whether you like it or not. At which point of course everybody else is to blame for the problem.

Perhaps matters would improve if factors did something for their management fees and acted in a more pro-active manner but I doubt it somehow.

As for the insurance question, I would like to think Crusty is right but I suspect that any insurance company would go through hell and high water to try and prove that a problem which has been the subject of a claim was caused by poor maintenance on behalf of the owners. Not that this would be hard to prove considering the self-evident condition of the majority of tenements in Glasgow.

I'd better stop now because I could go on in this misanthropic vein for hours. :evil:
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Postby crusty_bint » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:49 pm

Im in Shawlands, been in this flat just a few days over a year now and have had great success in organising common repairs in the close. So far we've cut down a 30ft tree, completely redone the back court and had the close windows refurbished with a replacement cupola happening early in the new year and the whole close re-plastered and painted. All without the aid of a factor, in fact, in spite of having a factor. Our factor does nothing, natta, zero, zilch, absolutely feck all other than collect thier monthly fee.

The last thing they did was arrange for the central yard (between all the backs in the tenement block) to be cleared of rubble and vegetation (at our repeated request!), and all they did was send one guy round with a strimmer - he spent about 40 minutes strimming with a cup of tea (that I made the bastard!) in between and no-one ever came back to clear the dead vegetation and rubble. Theres around 12 closes in the block, each with at least 8 flats in each and the factor took £12 off each flat (iirc) totalling over a thousand pounds.

We're ALL in the wrong feckin business!!

I think the way forward is for GHA and other LHO's to offer a factoring service to private closes.

In respect to the insurance payout on Clarence Dr, it will all depend on whether or not the close is factored and whether or not they were informed of the issue. As I said, any insurance company would have to have a solid reason for not paying out as continued deterioration will affect the closes either side and could lead to collapse of the entire wall, if not close.
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