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Hi, just wondering if anyone can give me some advice to go about taking my local Council to court.
The reasons for doing so are this: There was a fire in March in the flat above me - I'm a council tenant and live in the basement flat of a 4 story Victorian house, the upper three floors being occupied by a single family. Basically, without going into the details of all the damage that occurred, I was made aware by one of the tenants when they moved out that a wall was potentially unsafe, a large number of bricks had exploded during the fire, causing some kind of blow out, and there were cracks through which daylight could be seen. It is the end of terrace house so a lot of force had been directed onto the wall where the street ends.
Fast forward to September when builders moved in and scaffolding was erected, the contractor said to me. "Good job we got here when we did as that wall could have collapsed at any time - there were cracks in it through which daylight could be seen."
So basically, the local council left this building in a dangerous state for six months, during which time it could have collapsed on to an area directly outside my front door.
In addition to this they didn't undertake any repairs to my property caused by flooding that resulted from putting out the fire and subsequent leak from a damaged water tank that was not repaired for 81 days, and for 81 days following the fire I had water leaking into my home, which basically wrecked the hallway ceiling and left a large hole in it.
My kitchen ceiling had a severe bow in it and had been in a state of slow collapse since the fire.
They didn't repair any of these before allowing building work to take place in the property upstairs, leading to dust (including cement dust) and rubble coming into my hallway.
My kitchen ceiling nearly collapsed several times, during the installation of scaffolding when timbers were being thrown onto the floor above, and during the repeated lifting of the floorboards to install plumbing/electrics. In the end, I decided to pull it down myself rather risking it collapsing and possibly injuring me or my cats.
The work the builders were doing also included the dismantling and rebuilding of the damaged wall, and installing metal brackets around the building. During this work I was pretty much a prisoner in my home as so much rubble and chippings of brickwork were raining down outside my front door it was too dangerous to go outside.
Anyway, I want to take them to court. I'm sure they must have breached some kind of law multiple times, I'd just be grateful if anyone could advise what laws they've broken and how best to go about taking them to court.
The reasons for doing so are this: There was a fire in March in the flat above me - I'm a council tenant and live in the basement flat of a 4 story Victorian house, the upper three floors being occupied by a single family. Basically, without going into the details of all the damage that occurred, I was made aware by one of the tenants when they moved out that a wall was potentially unsafe, a large number of bricks had exploded during the fire, causing some kind of blow out, and there were cracks through which daylight could be seen. It is the end of terrace house so a lot of force had been directed onto the wall where the street ends.
Fast forward to September when builders moved in and scaffolding was erected, the contractor said to me. "Good job we got here when we did as that wall could have collapsed at any time - there were cracks in it through which daylight could be seen."
So basically, the local council left this building in a dangerous state for six months, during which time it could have collapsed on to an area directly outside my front door.
In addition to this they didn't undertake any repairs to my property caused by flooding that resulted from putting out the fire and subsequent leak from a damaged water tank that was not repaired for 81 days, and for 81 days following the fire I had water leaking into my home, which basically wrecked the hallway ceiling and left a large hole in it.
My kitchen ceiling had a severe bow in it and had been in a state of slow collapse since the fire.
They didn't repair any of these before allowing building work to take place in the property upstairs, leading to dust (including cement dust) and rubble coming into my hallway.
My kitchen ceiling nearly collapsed several times, during the installation of scaffolding when timbers were being thrown onto the floor above, and during the repeated lifting of the floorboards to install plumbing/electrics. In the end, I decided to pull it down myself rather risking it collapsing and possibly injuring me or my cats.
The work the builders were doing also included the dismantling and rebuilding of the damaged wall, and installing metal brackets around the building. During this work I was pretty much a prisoner in my home as so much rubble and chippings of brickwork were raining down outside my front door it was too dangerous to go outside.
Anyway, I want to take them to court. I'm sure they must have breached some kind of law multiple times, I'd just be grateful if anyone could advise what laws they've broken and how best to go about taking them to court.
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