Rewiring after flooding- who pays

zacha4

We have recently been flooded where we had 4 ft of water in the house. The insurance is covering the full cost of the repair to all including the downstairs electrics but a snag appears to be coming up.

The house is 200 year old and the wiring is not in the best condition and wired very haphazard eg sockets feed upstairs and downstairs and alot of the wiring is in rubber and even some lead. For them to complete the work they will require to open up the downstairs ceilings and wire some of the sockets upstairs as they link to downstairs. All this work will cause additional work in terms of redecoration on non flood damage, floors, walls and ceilings.

The insurance company builders have to sign off all of the work meets current standards and as such the house requires a full re-wire to meet this. If it wasn't for the flood we would not have to upgrade the wiring so thus do the insurance have to pay.

If we refuse to pay for the rewire at least for the extra work eg upstairs etc, the builder cannot sign of the electrics and thus the insurance claim cannot be completed - What is the bottom line for this do they have to pay.

Our surveyor says you need to play hardball and say no initially - the longer the claim and work goes on the insurance are spending out £600 a month on rented accommodation so they want a quick solution. The total claim for all the flood damage is near 140k as there is additional work outside rebuilding walls and other outbuilding so rewire costs is peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

Any advice welcome

Zach

custardy

would you be happy if they wired downstairs and cut off upstairs?
I would have thought the insurance paying downstairs and you upstairs(bearing in mind it will likely be cheaper given the workers are there anyway)is a fair compromise?

phill99

The insurance company have a liability to undertake work to a certifiable standard eg electrics or gas. Therefore they have to do the whole thing but may request a contribution from you. What does the loss adjuster say! Have you appointed you own loss adjustor? If not, you need to think about doing so.

zacha4

The insurance company have appointed a loss adjuster and also a building surveyor who compiled the scope of work for the house and external works. In the scope of work he did put in a sum of £1000 for possible extra work on the electrics but this will likely not be enough as it is likely to be a couple of grand on top of tendered cost and then there is the re-instatement cost with the replastering etc

It is being discussed next week but wanted what is a reasonable standpoint to adopt - with all the work in the house cars etc due to the flood money is in short supply

BobQ

I know its an unexpected additional cost but I think you are rather lucky that the wiring in the house (as you described it) has not already killed you and yours. It sounds as if it would fail and objective test for safety.

If so, I would speak to the insurance company about the matter in a constructive manner and accept that you will need to pay for some of the work on the upstairs electrics

As has been stated they could just rewire the down stairs and refuse to connect the upstairs circuits as being unsafe. I imagine that the downstairs work will include most of the costs of re-wiring the house (new consumer unit, all the higher power circuits ) and all you will be paying for is a couple of additional circuits.

The other costs of replastering etc would have been incurred in any case in the near future when you decided that you could not leave the upstairs circuits in such a state. I would count yourself lucky to get the house re-wired at a subsidised price.

chanz4

I wonder if they may try to get out of it, saying the property was is a poor state of repair?