Claiming a neighbours house insurance -Advice please

hrhjett

My upstairs neighbour decided to repair his boiler himself, burst a pipe and flooded me. The water came spewing in and right into my boiler. My boiler doesnt work. I have boiler cover, I called them out and as all the circuit boards are wet and effectivly dead, I would have to replace them to find out what other components dont work. The guy said it is not his job to condem boilers but as the pump got soaked he says even if my boiler did miraculasly come back to life with a new circuit board, days or even months down the line it will probably ceace working as all electrical parts look pretty well damaged. I am covered for the first £250 of a repair but not the rest. My boiler was put in 2004 but the serial no. puts a manufacture date of 1994 and my policy isnt going to cover me unless I can find the installation receipt. Excellent. I spoke to my insurance who say I must pay my £450 voluntry excess and a further £250 as its a claim concerning water, and then I can only try to claim the money back from his house insurance. The woman from the insurance company didnt seem very hopeful that I would be able to get my money back if I was able to afford it as I would need to prove its his fault. In a sick twist of fate, my mobile went through the washing machine on a 60 wash and the video of the black spewing water pouring in cant be recovered as some 'static' thing happened and its killed the memory card. I dont give a toss about the ceiling, the mountain of white towels that got ruined or the fact one of my hifi speakers is gargling. I have asked my neighbour for his details but ive been pammed off - including 'ill look later, im having my tea' He has no intention of passing on his details. Meanwhile me and my 8 week old baby have no heating, no hot water, only one of my 5 windows is double glazed im on a ground floor flat in a shaded street with ceilings 11.5ft high in Scotland. Its freezing. Ive been unemployed since October last year and have no savings, I am beside myself with worry and stress and have developed 'stress' abcesses on my groin (painful) I have had the worst luck in the world this past year. Surely there must be some other way to claim on his insurance, I cant do it through mine as I dont have £700. If someone crashed into my car, I wouldnt have to claim on my insurance - surely what Ive been told cant be right and there must be some other way to deal with this, the evidence is there for all to see. BTW I sold my car in Jan so cant raise funds as this was used to pay mortgage arrears - Im separated from my husband and I dont have the installation certificate and im already liable for the first visit from the boiler engineers. Insured with One call broker and its towergate underwriters.

Torry_Quine

It's normal to claim against your insurer and then they claim against the neighbour if they deem them liable. It's a terrible situation to be in and I hope you get it resolved soon.

At least it's warm and you don't need the heating on, do you.

ggginny

So sorry to hear about this - it sounds like a very difficult situation. Have you tried contacting your local councillor to see if they can help? What about your local social work department? The fact that you have no hot water and such a young baby, I would hope would mean they could find some way to help you out - perhaps even by applying to the Lord Provost Fund which is set up to support vulnerable people and children in Glasgow - must be worth a try?

Best of luck