A leak from my leasehold flat! What now?

Stubbsy05

I have owned my Flat for 2 months. In that time I have removed the bathroom and kitchen which are ready for replacement.
I popped downstairs to the flat below last night to introduce myself to the lady. She is only there certain times of the year as its a holiday flat. She showed me part of her ceiling which she discovered on the 1st of OCtober. It seems some water has leaked through to her ceiling. She has raised this the the management company.

So what happens now? I explained that I haven't even used the bathroom, so it could have happened before I moved in for all she and I know.

Thanks

barnaby-bear

Stubbsy05 wrote:

I have owned my Flat for 2 months. In that time I have removed the bathroom and kitchen which are ready for replacement.

So what happens now? I explained that I haven't even used the bathroom, so it could have happened before I moved in for all she and I know.

Thanks

I'd suspect the removing bathroom bit rather than the using bit.

However she can't say when it happened and if you don't think it was you protest your innocence.

Ian_W

Removing the bathroom does sound a bit "co-incidental" to downstairs having water penetration - but won't her damage be covered by the buildings insurance arranged by the management company?

A good few years this happened to me in a downstairs flat, we being the leakee rather than the leakor!! After upstairs had their plumbing repaired the insuers paid for my wall and ceiling to be redecorated. Can't remember if there was an excess on the insurance but I'm certain we didn't pay anything.

If I was you I'd also contact the management co and find out the insurance position.

tonyivb

One of the (minor) reasons we sold our flat was because of the spiraling insurance costs... predominantly brought about due to the number of flood/water leak claims (averaging 3 per year over the last four years).

In the year before we sold the insurance jumped from £4500 to £6000 and they imposed a £1000 excess on all F/WD claims.

The Management Company were trying to find a way of passing the excess cost onto the person(s) responsible for the leak, but I imagine that they will have difficulty in getting the money so I'd imagine that the Mgmt Co. would have to cover the excess out of the service charges (SC).

The insurance alone already accounted for 25% of the SC, so we could foresee a large increase in the SC to cover these claims.

Going back to your situation Stubbsy... if you lucky then the whole lot will be paid out of the insurance, but if the MC are anything like our old one then you may be stung for the excess bill!