Water damage: from the tenant's report to a closed defect

The owners' association at Lindenstraße 12 in Leipzig has fourteen units. Flat 7 belongs to Mr Brandt, who lets it; Ms Yilmaz lives there. One Thursday evening she notices a dark patch on the bathroom ceiling. By Friday morning it is bigger.

Without a shared system it goes roughly like this: Ms Yilmaz calls Mr Brandt, who is away on business. On Sunday he emails the management, who read it on Monday. The management calls Ms Yilmaz to get the photos she sent Mr Brandt by WhatsApp days ago. The plumber needs the tenant's phone number, and the owner of the flat above learns about the damage from the plumber. Three months later the insurer asks when the damage was reported, and someone searches four inboxes.

Here is the same case in Condomana.

Friday, 7:30 — the report

Ms Yilmaz has her own login to the tenant portal; Mr Brandt invited her when he recorded the tenancy. Under Issues she describes the patch and attaches three photos; up to five are possible.

The issue goes to Mr Brandt first, not to the management. That is deliberate. Most of a tenant's issues concern the rented flat — the dripping tap, the sticking balcony door — and therefore their landlord, not the association. The management does not see such an issue while it sits between tenant and landlord. The photos from inside her flat stay with him too, for now.

Friday, 8:10 — the landlord decides

Mr Brandt gets a notification and opens the issue under Tenant issues in his portal. He replies to Ms Yilmaz in the same thread that he is on it. If the organisation has AI switched on, he can have the reply drafted and edit it.

But a patch on a ceiling comes from above: from the flat upstairs or from the riser pipe, and the riser is usually common property. That is not a matter between him and his tenant. He clicks Escalate to the management and writes an endorsement: "Patch growing since yesterday, probably a pipe above, please check urgently."

No endorsement, no escalation. With one, the very same issue moves on to the management — no duplicate, no retyped report. The management sees the tenant's original report, her photos and Mr Brandt's reason. Ms Yilmaz is notified that her issue has been passed on, and keeps her one thread.

Friday, 8:25 — the management takes over

Thomas Reuter, the manager, receives the escalation as a notification. The matter is in the defect list.

With AI switched on, Condomana has already prepared an assessment: category Plumbing / water, urgency High, and a pointer to a possible duplicate — the owner of flat 10 reported a damp wall in the hallway on Wednesday. Plus a draft of a first reply. All of it appears as suggestions Mr Reuter accepts or dismisses. Until he accepts something, nothing about the defect changes.

The duplicate is the real gain. Two reports from two flats in two different wordings are something no keyword search finds. Now he knows the cause very probably sits above both.

Contractor and sub-tasks

Mr Reuter assigns the plumbing firm from his contractor directory. Owners see only the company and trade on the defect; phone numbers and contact names stay within the team.

Water damage is not one job but a sequence of steps. He breaks it into sub-tasks, each with its own status and, where needed, its own contractor:

• Locate and repair the leak — plumber
• Dry out the structure — drying company
• Restore the ceiling in flat 7 — painter
• Report the claim to the building insurer — own team

The main defect cannot be archived while a sub-task is still open. So the painter is not accidentally forgotten once the pipe is sealed.

The insurance claim number and the price agreement go into an internal note — never shown to owners. What the parties should know goes into the thread as an ordinary comment.

On site

In the afternoon Mr Reuter is in the building with the plumber. There is no signal in the basement. Capture on site works anyway: he opened the page beforehand, photographs the wet section of pipe, and the photos upload as soon as he has signal again. Location data is stripped from the images on the device itself.

Photos and files stay attached to the defect. A year from now it will still show what was broken and what was done.

Telling the building

Ms Yilmaz's issue remains an issue of her flat even after escalation; the other owners do not see it. The building still needs to know, because on Monday the water will be off for two hours.

So Mr Reuter writes an announcement, marks it urgent — every owner with portal access gets an email immediately — and ticks also visible to residents, so tenants see it in their portal too. With AI switched on, he can have the text drafted and translated into each recipient's portal language.

A timeline that only moves forward

A defect's status has one direction: Open, In progress, Handled. It does not jump back, and when work started and finished is never quietly rewritten afterwards. Whoever follows the defect hears about every status change.

That sounds like bookkeeping, but it is liability. In Germany the association owes a duty of care (Verkehrssicherungspflicht) for the common property, which in practice the manager discharges, and when someone later asks when you knew about the damage and when you acted, a record that cannot be changed is what counts.

The invoice

Three weeks later the plumber's invoice arrives. Mr Reuter books it and links the booking on the defect under Costs. The defect now shows what it cost, and the accounts show what the expense was for. In the annual settlement it is apportioned by its cost type's distribution key, like any other expense.

He marks the defect handled. Ms Yilmaz sees the status in her portal, Mr Brandt in his. Fourteen days later the defect list proposes archiving it.

What Condomana does not do here

Condomana does not file the insurance claim for you and does not hire the contractor. Triage proposes; it does not decide. And whether a pipe is common or individual property is something your declaration of division tells you, not the software.

The essentials

• The tenant reports once, with photos, and keeps a single thread to the end.
• The landlord filters: what concerns the flat stays with him; what concerns the association he escalates with a reason.
• The management gets the whole context — report, photos, endorsement, possible duplicates — instead of a phone call.
• The timeline holds: when you knew and when you acted can be shown later.