House guest flooded the bath; water seeped through the floor to the downstairs flat

Dragon_of_Consumer_Power

OK - will do. Thank you.

ruggedtoast

Dragon_of_Consumer_Power wrote: »

It's now been reported to the landlady. I also emailed the letting agent to outline what had happened, and I have just received this reply:



I replied asking if there was a building insurance policy to cover this kind of scenario.

I think you need to get some proper legal advice. You've had a lot of different opinions here.

tyllwyd

I'm a bit surprised that other people have said that the friend wasn't negligent - he started the bath running and then went into a different room to make tea. If he had stayed in the bathroom, or turned the taps off before leaving the room then the accident wouldn't have happened. I'm not a lawyer, but if I lived in the flat below I would consider that negligent - wouldn't you?

jazabelle

I can't say I've ever stood watching a bath fill. Mine usually takes a good ten minutes, at my old house it could take 20! So I normally go and do something in that time, before returning. I don't that that's unreasonable at all.

tyllwyd

jazabelle wrote: »

I can't say I've ever stood watching a bath fill. Mine usually takes a good ten minutes, at my old house it could take 20! So I normally go and do something in that time, before returning. I don't that that's unreasonable at all.

And that's the other thing that is confusing me ... if it takes 10 minutes to fill the bath, it must have taken another 10 minutes the bath to fill to overflowing, so that's at least 15 or 20 minutes away making tea and looking after his hand - so how could he know that it was only overflowing for a couple of minutes? I would guess that he has no idea how long it might actually have been overflowing.

(And I don't always stand over a bath while it is filling but I am in and out of the room to check on it to make sure it doesn't overflow.)

lisyloo

he started the bath running and then went into a different room to make tea

I don't stand over the Bath and watch it and no I don't consider it negligent to walk away for a very short period e.g. to get undressed.

But there is another importatnt point here.
If you were in one of the other flats - how on earth would you know what happened? It's generally very hard to prove negligence because you don't know what happened and in general people don't volunteer to incriminate themselves and it's impossible to prove. They only have to defend themselves in court which cost money and time and usually things don't get that far.
So I think there is a very importan point, that the other people won't generally have the information to decide on.

If he had stayed in the bathroom, or turned the taps off before leaving the room then the accident wouldn't have happened.

How does that work then?
Does actually watching the water reduced the chance of scalding?

geri1965_2

I also think the guest was negligent. However, if I was his insurer I would defend the claim and ask the claimant to prove it

lisyloo

I think you've hit the nail on the head there Geri - proving negligence is near impossible - and that's why it's really important he doesn't incriminate himself/guest.

Spamtastic

lisyloo wrote: »

How does that work then?
Does actually watching the water reduced the chance of scalding?

I think the point being made was that the scalding happened in another room while making tea, so if Julian had stood watching the bath fill he wouldn't have been making tea with scalding water in another room.

tyllwyd

"If he had stayed in the bathroom, or turned the taps off before leaving the room then the accident wouldn't have happened."

How does that work then?
Does actually watching the water reduced the chance of scalding?

He left the room to make a cup of tea and scalded himself while making the tea so he forgot about the bath. If he had stayed in the bathroom, or turned off the taps before he left the room to make tea, then the bath wouldn't have overflowed. That seems quite straightforward to me.