What should you do if you spot wet patches on a ceiling?
Photograph the wet patch as soon as you notice it, note the date and whether it appeared or grew during or after rain, and report it to your landlord or factor in writing. In a Scottish tenement or slate roofed house, a wet patch on a ceiling or in the corner of a room is very often a sign of a slate, flashing, or common roof fault above, rather than a problem inside your own flat, and it should be treated as urgent rather than cosmetic.
This page is practical advice for tenants and owners who have already spotted a wet patch. For the legal side of what a landlord must do about it, and what happens if they don’t, see our landlord roof obligations guide.
Step by step: what to do first
- Photograph it. Take clear photos of the affected ceiling or corner, including a wider shot showing where it sits in the room, and note the date.
- Check if it tracks with rain. A patch that appears or visibly worsens during or shortly after rain strongly suggests water ingress from above, rather than, for example, a plumbing issue.
- Report it in writing. If you rent, tell your landlord or letting agent by email or message rather than only by phone, so there is a dated record. If you own in a shared tenement, tell your factor or the other owners, since the roof is likely a shared part of the building under the rules explained in our tenement shared repairs guide.
- Keep a simple record. A short dated note each time the patch changes (gets bigger, dries out, reappears) is useful evidence if the problem needs to be escalated later.
Why a wet patch is often a roof problem, not a room problem
In a traditional Edinburgh tenement or slate roofed house, a top floor ceiling sits directly under the roof structure, so water finding its way past a slipped slate or a failed piece of flashing very often shows up first as a stain or damp patch on the ceiling below, sometimes a good distance from the actual point where water is getting in, since it can track along sarking boards or joists before dropping. Our guide to whether a slipped slate will leak and lead flashing guide explain the two most common sources.
If nothing happens after you report it
If you are a tenant and a landlord does not act on a reported roof related damp problem, Scots law gives you a route to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland, which can order the repairs to be carried out and, if the landlord still doesn’t comply, reduce the rent payable. Our landlord roof obligations guide explains that process in full, including a real published case with facts very similar to a ceiling water ingress problem.
Email us photos of the roof and what floor it’s on, or how many levels up it is, and we’ll tell you what we need to give you a price.
Roof owner dealing with a reported damp patch?
Email us photos of the roof and what floor it’s on, or how many levels up it is, and we’ll tell you what we need to give you a price.
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