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Dangerous rented property and need advice!
wafflefaffle
Posts: 13 Forumite
Hi there!
I'm after some advice as to where I stand and if I have my landlord by the balls.
I live in a 3 storey cottage where the ground floor is mostly underground and is my office/living area.
The last 8 months it has had flooding issues due to leaking in rain water (it constantly had pools of water raising up from the floorboards and smelt bad) but in december it was tanked and rebuilt and in February was completed. So I decorated and refurnished the room.
Last Friday we had very bad freak rain and it came down very very heavy! The new tanking failed. I wan't home at the time but discovered it the next day. The water rose to about 2 foot and more or less destroyed everything in there. My contents insurance doesn't cover flood damage either.
My concerns are not just this but the safety of the place which to me are extremely dangerous. When I came home the following day I didn't know there was flooding as it was downstairs. I came in and could hear sizzling noises and blue sparks coming from the kitchen sink... i was stupid and went to investigate. I know it was supid but when you're in a situation you just don't think. I walked over the kitchen sink through a large pool of water and took the wooden panel off the kitchen sink to find 4cms from the pipework a junction box, it was live and sparking in water. The water i was half stood in.. no idea how I'm still here to be honest!! The electrician was baffled too. I paniced and ran downstairs to the fuse box to turn it off... this was bad mistake number 2! The flood water had luckily drained away but had I waded through water I'm likely to be frazzled bacon by now also. The electrics through all that flood water just failed to short out. The staircases through the property are also wrought iron spiral. Everything would have just been live.
I've now temporarily vacated the building but paying a friend to put me up. The landlords (there's 2... the owner and the estate agent that manages it) are avoiding me and my demands for information. For one I want the electrical report off them for when the electrician first turned up.
I've made certain demands now. Do you think i'm in my right to ask for these before I move back in....
1) insurance in place to cover me for me items... normal insurance does not cover flood damage, or if not is he is willing to offer some form of compensation.
2) update on the progress regularly.
3) The electrics of the place need to be reassessed before i move back in. ie the junction box under the sink, also the re-positioning of the fuse box ie in a known floodable room right at the back end seems dangerous. Also should this not be updated (it still runs on 1970s fusewire?
4) plug sockets should be raised off the ground in a known floodable room and not the standard 15cm off the ground.
5) due to the amount of water damage the house has had over the past 12 months, a building report to say that the property is stable.
Is all this reasonable? I'm concerned mostly with the safety of the place (I have intentions in any case of leaving the property in a few months time but want to see it in a safe state for the next occupiers) and of course compensation for my loss of items (about £1k) worth, if at all possible.
Any advice is most welcome and thankyou for reading!
Katy
I'm after some advice as to where I stand and if I have my landlord by the balls.
I live in a 3 storey cottage where the ground floor is mostly underground and is my office/living area.
The last 8 months it has had flooding issues due to leaking in rain water (it constantly had pools of water raising up from the floorboards and smelt bad) but in december it was tanked and rebuilt and in February was completed. So I decorated and refurnished the room.
Last Friday we had very bad freak rain and it came down very very heavy! The new tanking failed. I wan't home at the time but discovered it the next day. The water rose to about 2 foot and more or less destroyed everything in there. My contents insurance doesn't cover flood damage either.
My concerns are not just this but the safety of the place which to me are extremely dangerous. When I came home the following day I didn't know there was flooding as it was downstairs. I came in and could hear sizzling noises and blue sparks coming from the kitchen sink... i was stupid and went to investigate. I know it was supid but when you're in a situation you just don't think. I walked over the kitchen sink through a large pool of water and took the wooden panel off the kitchen sink to find 4cms from the pipework a junction box, it was live and sparking in water. The water i was half stood in.. no idea how I'm still here to be honest!! The electrician was baffled too. I paniced and ran downstairs to the fuse box to turn it off... this was bad mistake number 2! The flood water had luckily drained away but had I waded through water I'm likely to be frazzled bacon by now also. The electrics through all that flood water just failed to short out. The staircases through the property are also wrought iron spiral. Everything would have just been live.
I've now temporarily vacated the building but paying a friend to put me up. The landlords (there's 2... the owner and the estate agent that manages it) are avoiding me and my demands for information. For one I want the electrical report off them for when the electrician first turned up.
I've made certain demands now. Do you think i'm in my right to ask for these before I move back in....
1) insurance in place to cover me for me items... normal insurance does not cover flood damage, or if not is he is willing to offer some form of compensation.
2) update on the progress regularly.
3) The electrics of the place need to be reassessed before i move back in. ie the junction box under the sink, also the re-positioning of the fuse box ie in a known floodable room right at the back end seems dangerous. Also should this not be updated (it still runs on 1970s fusewire?
4) plug sockets should be raised off the ground in a known floodable room and not the standard 15cm off the ground.
5) due to the amount of water damage the house has had over the past 12 months, a building report to say that the property is stable.
Is all this reasonable? I'm concerned mostly with the safety of the place (I have intentions in any case of leaving the property in a few months time but want to see it in a safe state for the next occupiers) and of course compensation for my loss of items (about £1k) worth, if at all possible.
Any advice is most welcome and thankyou for reading!
Katy
0
Comments
-
Reasonable? yes, but does the landlord have to do any of this? probably not. Their duty is to ensure the electrics are in good order - anything above and beyond i.e. letting you see reports etc will be at their discretion.
The changes in electrical wiring regulations are, as I understand it, not retrospective - meaning that they can continue with what they have until they decide to upgrade.0 -
Hi and thanks for the response. I did think as much!
"The changes in electrical wiring regulations are, as I understand it, not retrospective - meaning that they can continue with what they have until they decide to upgrade."
But is this the case in a known room liable to flooding and water damage?
Thanks again!0 -
The landlord has shown good faith by paying to have the basement tanked. I'm not really sure what else could reasonably have been asked of them.
Rain falls. Basements flood. If you can't insure your own possession from flood damage I'm not sure what it is that you expect your landlord to do for you in that respect.0 -
Why can't you get flood insurance? Most home insurance policies do cover flood damage. My parents had a £40k claim when their house flooded and that included contents as well as buildings.
Is your home in a flood area and therefore the insurers are adding a flood exclusion?0
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