Under One Roof has partnered with the University of Strathclyde to publish a helpful new toolkit on owners’ associations, to help tenement owners work together to keep their buildings in good repair.

Looking after a tenement building involves working with your neighbours. Sharing responsibility for common areas, such as the roof and external walls, makes it inevitable, yet we often hear from tenement owners that working together is the hardest part of the common repairs process. It can be difficult for some owners just to get in touch with their neighbours, let alone organise meetings, hold votes and make decisions in a fair and democratic way.

Written by Dr Iain Cairns and Emma Miller, this new toolkit is designed to help you every step of the way. It contains useful information on how to apply knowledge, reasoning, communication and interpersonal skills to the common repairs process in your building. From your very first in-person interaction with your neighbours, to forming an owners’ association, to organising complex projects together, this toolkit can support you with helpful examples and tips.

If you are already a member of an owners’ association, and need further help with working with uncooperative neighbours, there are useful examples of how to do this too.

At Under One Roof, we are trying to create a database of owners’ associations in Scotland, to learn how best we can support you and make the case to policy-makers for more support for tenement owners. Please fill in the survey below to receive the toolkit by email.