Damp, its causes and the implication in leasehold property

There is a wide variety of methods of resolving damp within buildings that seems to vary between opening a window to installing vertical and horizontal membranes together with replacing wall plaster that has been damaged by the water penetration. How successful each of these various methods have been is not easy to establish. To gather evidence, the judgments of the Court of Appeal in landlord and tenant cases does reveal what did not work and sometimes why. Not every type of damp-proof treatment has been shown to have been tested. The repairing method selected is often set out in the calculation of damages. In order to catalogue the evidence presented to the various courts, the dampness has been divided into three groups: that caused by condensation, that resulting from ground water, and squeezing in a case where the external cladding had failed. The remedy to the damp entry varies from knocking the building down and starting again, replacing the wall plaster and the damp course, to expecting better management of the conditions to reduce their effect upon the property. Each judgment has been made in reliance upon expert evidence put before the court. In some cases it can be seen that incorrect evidence has misled a judge and the outcome is flawed. ‘Our adversarial system depends heavily on the independence of expert witnesses, on the primacy of their duty to the court over any other loyalty or obligation, and on the rigour with which experts make known any associations or loyalties which might give rise to a conflict.’