Leasehold
The housing association says the window is yours to repair. Does the survey decide that, or does the lease?
The lease decides, not the survey, and not an email from the housing association on its own. If the association says the window is yours to repair, that sentence still has to match the demise and the repairing covenant. The inspection can describe rotten timber or failed glazing. It cannot award the window to you or to the landlord.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
Shared ownership is still a lease. Who repairs a window is a clause, sometimes a schedule of landlord's and leaseholder's items, sometimes a plan that colours the frame inside the demise. An association's customer-service email can be right, incomplete, or about a different scheme standard. The surveyor was not sent to adjudicate it. They look at the frame, the sill, the seals and the glass they can see, and they rate condition. The survey does not decide demise, and it does not decide whether a service charge or you will pay for the next replacement.
Give the solicitor the email and the lease wording side by side. Ask them to say, in writing, who repairs this window on this lease. Then read the survey comment as the practical problem: draughts, rot, failed units. If the lease puts the window on you, the condition comment is your repair to price with a contractor. If the lease puts it on the landlord, the same comment is something to raise through the association, not a private job you should start because an email and a rating seemed to agree. Agreement between those two documents is not something the surveyor certifies.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- What is wrong with the window, leaving aside who must pay?
- Did you read a repairing schedule, or only see the frame?
- Will you avoid saying the association's email has settled the demise?
What are the typical next steps?
- Ask the solicitor to match the email against the lease.
- Use the survey for the condition of the frame and the glass.
- Do not start a replacement until you know who the lease names.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
If the glass has failed, does that prove the window is demised to you?
No. Failure is condition. Demise is the lease. A failed unit can sit on either side of that line.
Can the association's handbook overrule the lease?
Do not assume it. The solicitor compares them. The survey does not promote a handbook into the lease.