A leak in the stairwell, a storm-battered roof, the smashed glass in the entrance, a broken-into storage room have one thing in common: they belong to nobody – and to everybody. With damage to common areas there is no single affected resident who would simply get on with it; the owner of the claim is the community, and in practice the manager. This article sets out how damage to common areas should be handled.
- Damage to common areas is everything that affects the commonly owned parts: stairwell, roof, façade, corridors, shared rooms, building systems.
- The claim belongs to the manager: they organise the mitigation, they document it and they report it on the building's policy – on the insurer's claims line.
- Managing the period up to the repair – temporary measures, keeping residents informed – matters just as much as the claims handling itself.
What counts as damage to common areas?
Everything that affects common property – regardless of whether one resident, several residents or everyone feels the consequences. Storm damage to the roof is common damage even if only the top-floor flat gets wet; the stairwell glass is too, even if nobody lives on the ground floor. Here too the basis of classification is the ownership boundary under the deed of foundation – and from that follows who acts: where common property is damaged, the community acts, through the manager.
The manager's running order
Handling damage to common areas follows the usual claims process, with a few particularities. Mitigation here is an organisational task: temporary covering, closing off an area, dealing with utilities – with contractors you can reach quickly this is a matter of hours, without them a matter of days. The advantage of common areas when it comes to documentation is that they can be photographed freely; the disadvantage is that nobody feels they are theirs, so appoint someone to be responsible. The report goes on the building's policy, on the insurer's claims line, filed by the manager; and it is worth keeping residents briefly and regularly informed about where the case stands – damage in the stairwell is in front of everyone's eyes, and silence breeds speculation.
Burglary and criminal damage: the police are involved too
A distinct family within common-area losses is deliberate damage: broken-into storage rooms, a damaged entrance door, graffiti on the façade. Here claims handling typically expects a police report – even against an unknown offender – so the order is: preserve the scene, take photos, report to the police, then report to the insurer with the details of the police report. The details of the cover are in the articles on burglary and criminal damage and on vandalism.
The repair and the lessons
During the repair the communal character shows once more: larger works may need quotes and possibly a decision by the general meeting – this is where the claim and the building's decision-making meet (help: preparing the decision). And once it is closed, two entries follow: the claims file into the archive, the lesson onto the prevention checklist. Damage to common areas is the community's shared experience – it is worth learning from.
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