Water damage to neighbours property advice please.

wifefaefife

Hi, I'm not really sure if I'm in the right place for this but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. The advice is for my friend, who lives in a flat.

Water had leaked from friends bathroom into downstairs neighbours bathroom. The landlord who owns the property says there is over £400 worth of damage, which would include taking part of the ceiling down to fix. Friends dad went to downstairs property with a digital dampness meter and no dampness was found. I think most of the damage is cosmetic and does on need the level of work that the Landlords builders are quoting for. I also think that some of the mould in the bathroom is due to the tenants having shower etc.

Do you think it is acceptable not to accept landlords quote and to fix it himself?

irnbru_2

wifefaefife wrote: »

Do you think it is acceptable not to accept landlords quote and to fix it himself?

Has the Landlord no insurance?

andyhop

In flats and tenements you would claim on your own insurance. Owners of the flat below would need to claim on there cover

wifefaefife

Thank you for the advice I will pass it onto my friend. Andrew B my friend owns his flat and the landlord owns the flat below.

phill99

the vast majority of purpose built blocks of flats in the UK have a service charge. This service charge includes the BUILDINGS insurance for the whole block. Therefore the insurer for both your friend and the flat downstairs is the same.

Put it through the insurers and let them deal with it. Its an insured loss. the only issue will be with the excess. As the watrer has leaked through the ceiling to the flat below, your froend could be liable for the excess.

wifefaefife

I don't think my friend pays a service charge but I will ask. The property is ex council. Thanks again for the advice.

Dognobs

Council will still own the leasehold. Most leaks will only need a coat of paint. Mold is a long term problem unrelated to the leak.

vaio

No No.

The upstairs flat is only liable for damage done by water leaks if they were negligent (in the legal sense), this means they must have known that a leak existed and done nothing about it or (maybe) not repaired a previous leak properly.

Having an unexpected leak doesn’t qualify as negligence and so the downstairs will have to deal with it themselves or via their insurance company.

jee

I've been in the same position. A pipe in my flat was leaking downstairs- it went on for a while because the leaking pipe was quite hidden so the damage to the ceiling in the flat below and my floor was pretty bad.
Anyway- I paid a plumber to fix the leak. The buildings insurance is paid by the management company so we individually got in touch with the mgt company who gave us the insurance details and the insurers sent out a surveyor.
We were both covered for damage and excess was covered by the service charge.
Even if your friend and neighbour are not covered by the same building insurance company the flat with the leak is still covered for damage to the other property. It's near impossible to prove negligence causing the leak as wear and tear is normal.

loracan1

Whilst not being in a flat I've been in a similar situation when my terraced neighbour had a flood in her house. It seeped through from her bathroom upstairs to my downstairs dining room, damaging the floor and wall. I had to claim through my insurance as there was no negligence involved.

chaddyb

definetly, last winter the pipes in roof space above our flat burst and damaged our lounge and the lounge of flat below us, the landlord presented us a bill for £2200. All tenants i our block pay an insurance for buildings and we contacted them (Zurich) who asked us to get quotes, the highest was £920 and the insurance paid up we just had to pay £100 excess