Roof leaked and damaged contents - landlord's responsibility?

bitsandpieces

The roof where I rent leaked recently. The leak was fixed promptly, but caused some damage to my property I do have contents insurance, but with a high-ish excess. Any idea if the landlord will have any liability for this, or I need to suck up the cost of the excess/repairs?

If it makes a difference, the roof has leaked before and been fixed. I don't know, of course, whether the repeat leak was down to a poor-quality fix or just bad luck.

grifferz

The LL is responsible for repair. The LL is not responsible for damage to your property unless you can argue that the leak happened due to negligence. This doesn't sound to be the case, so you'll have to turn to your home contents insurance.

thequant

grifferz wrote: »

The LL is responsible for repair. The LL is not responsible for damage to your property unless you can argue that the leak happened due to negligence. This doesn't sound to be the case, so you'll have to turn to your home contents insurance.

Actually I would have to disagree, the owner of any building (i.e. LL in this case) is responsible for any damage or costs his property incurs on another party.

I use to work in insurance and have seen some very large successful claims for things such as people walking down the street and being hit by flying debris.

However I have to agree, he should go through his contents insurance. Because if the LL is responsible the claim will be subrogated to the LL insurance and the OPs excess and no claims will not be affected.

bitsandpieces

Thanks - been in touch with insurance company.

newsgroup_monkey

having been through this before, be very, very careful (it seems you have already been in conversation with the insurance company though).

Similar thing happened to me in 2008. I spoke to the LL and the LA and they said that I had to claim against my own insurance. I didn't believe them so took some external advice (pretty much said the same).

The problem was caused by a blocked drain backing up when snow melted (we were away) then the weight pushing in the roof (since been fixed by having a different method of draining).

Unfortunately, it was classed as "accidental damage". Which I didn't have on my policy.

I now have to "declare" it every year (well, OK not after this year), even though I couldn't claim and didn't get a penny back.

dacouch

thequant wrote: »

Actually I would have to disagree, the owner of any building (i.e. LL in this case) is responsible for any damage or costs his property incurs on another party.

I use to work in insurance and have seen some very large successful claims for things such as people walking down the street and being hit by flying debris.

However I have to agree, he should go through his contents insurance. Because if the LL is responsible the claim will be subrogated to the LL insurance and the OPs excess and no claims will not be affected.

You need to prove negligence to be able to claim, just because someone is hit by flying debris does not make the home owner liable.

RoofContractor

Please contact the insurance company.