First of all, thanks for the help in my recent "Condensation in the House" thread recently. Turns out the tenants were drying their clothes in that area but with no ventilation and little heating.
Anyway, new problem now. Just to reiterate, this is a mid-terraced house built in 1874. The house next door is now undergoing renovation and our tenant texted us last night to say that next-door's builder has found a hole in the chimney between the two properties and that it's joint responsibility to repair it.
I've not been to the house yet so I don't know where this hole is, ie, ground floor/bedroom level or roof. However, what I do know is that about 18 months or two years ago, our house failed it's 'Landlord's Gas Safety Check' because smoke was coming out of the sides of the chimney stack rather than the top of the chimney pots and the solution to that problem was to install new (aluminium?) flue liners for each of our two gas fires.
Admittedly, I'm well out of my depth here but to my simplistic mind the current problem can't be too bad... can it? I mean, if there's a hole, surely all it needs is to be bricked up and it can't be that big a deal can it? I'll give you more detail when I know more.