Lack of Lap - Leaking Roof - RICS Surveyor Issue

[Barney12]

Hi Guys

 

(Long post, sorry)

 

I’m currently helping out a good friend who’s recently bought a new property (built in the mid 80’s). This property was subject to a RICS homebuyers survey, more on that in a minute. 

 

Anyway she she called me at the weekend to say she’d spotted a damp patch in one of the bedrooms. So up in the loft I go (no boarding, perilous ?) and take a look. I immediately noticed a sagging section of roofing felt, through the gap I could see daylight! OK, I thought hole in the roof, it happens (a few trees around and it’s been stormy). So then I peeled back the deep cross layered loft insulation to find that clearly from the state of the ceiling timber and plasterboard that this was far from a new leak.

 

So up the ladders I go to look at the roof, I could not see a single damaged tile (concrete tiled roof). So scratching my head I grabbed a garden cane, went back into the loft and poked it through the hole I could see from the inside. Off back outside there was the cane clearly poking through the gap between two tiles up close to the next row up. More head scratching, then from looking at the roof from the gable end it dawned on me what the problem was; almost no lap! 

 

So later the same day it starts piddling it down; back up into the loft I go and witness the water running down the roofing felt and through the hole (now bigger, from my poking around).

 

So today I got my roofing mate round. He agreed with my synopsis but then pointed out several visible dips/valley’s and kicked tiles on the back section of roof. The roof trusses are all sound so the only conclusion we could come up with is that the entire roof is probably leaking (due to the lack of lap) and the roofing felt has been keeping the rain out. The visible dips are either where the tiles have slipped the batten or that the battens have simply rotted and sagged. 

 

Another visual clue is that from inside the loft you can clearly see the fasciae and soffits. This is possible because the roofing felt doesn’t go all the way to the bottom. There re ridge trays visible but the felt stops short of them. It appears that the water runs down the felt into the soffit area and through the ventilation strips which runs the entire length of the very new uPVC facias and soffits. I would imagine the old ones were rotted to hell!

 

Net result. Strip and re-roof which will even need more tiles as the increased lap will result in needing more. Estimate (mates rates): £10k. My friend is rightly very upset. 

 

Ive added some photos below but they’re not overly clear as the sun was in front of me making the pics hard to take. 

 

One point to to note is that these concrete tiles are of a completely flat design and thus just like a slate rely on a lap to be weather proof. 

 

So what’s people’s views on a likely claim against the surveyor? Yes a homebuyers report is visual and not invasive but it didn’t take me long to suss the problem by visual inspection alone.