we flooded neighbours advice please...

blueskies10

Hi there so heres the story...

we live in a top floor flat owned by ourselves and we have a 300 litre fish tank in our living room. Throughout the night for some bizarre reason our fish tank leaked half its contents wrecking our carpet. It also caused damage to the neighbour below wrecking their laminate flooring and wall paper. Now heres the thing we have our own insurance which i have phoned to report the problem, my neighbour who is a council tenant is saying she has no home insurance. what do we do? i have given her our policy number but i was told unless she has her own insurance theres no way she can claim for her damage. We have 2 young children both work claim no benefits and have zero spare cash so no way can pay for her damage upfront. To be fair its not really our fault she has no home insurance but where does that leave this situation? :S

tasticz

As far as i know if they are council tennant they just need to report to the council and they will make a claim on their behalf from your insurance company

just my 2 words someone more experienced will come along soon!

blueskies10

thanks for your reply. i phoned our local council and they said they can fix damage to the actual property but as far a decoration goes they tenant is responsible for it.

elsien

Was it your insurer who told you it wasn't covered?
As a starting point I'd rummage out your policy document and read the small print.
To be fair, it's not her fault you've wrecked her decor. However inadvertently.

aliasojo

blueskies10 wrote: »

To be fair its not really our fault she has no home insurance .............

It's even less fair for her to be out of pocket for something that stemmed from you.

blueskies10

we are covered for damage in our own property but they are saying they cant cover damage to the neighbours property directly. They said first the neighbour would put a claim through their own insurance first which would then claim money back from ours. but as they have no insurance thats not possible :S

blueskies10

aliasojo wrote: »

It's even less fair for her to be out of pocket for something that stemmed from you.

at the end of the day it was done without intention and was totally accidental which is why hard working people like myself pay home insurance each month to cover for such situations.

dacouch

blueskies10 wrote: »

we are covered for damage in our own property but they are saying they cant cover damage to the neighbours property directly. They said first the neighbour would put a claim through their own insurance first which would then claim money back from ours. but as they have no insurance thats not possible :S

For your neighboor to be able to claim against the liability section of your policy, they would need to prove you acted negligently.

Your tank leaking does not necessarily make you negligent, what may make you negligent is if you did not repair any earlier leaks and / or maintain the tank.

aliasojo

blueskies10 wrote: »

at the end of the day it was not done without intention and was totally accidental which is why hard working people like myself pay home insurance each month to cover for such situations.

Of course. I'm not saying it's your fault, please don't think that.

I just think it dreadfully unfair that someone else should be so badly affected by another and seemingly have little recourse.

Contents insurance isn't compulsory as I'm sure you'll know and most of us wouldn't consider getting insurance just in case a neighbour affected us.

I'm sure if the tables were turned you'd be expecting your losses to be covered.

vaio

liability flows from negligence, if you weren't negligent then you and your insurer aren't liable.

Negligence in this instance means that you were aware of an issue and didn't take steps to prevent damage. If the tank just unexpectedly leaked then no negligence, if you knew there was an issue with the tank, say a slight leak which then got worse and did the damage then you (or rather your insurer) will pay for the damage to downstairs.

Hope the inhabitants of the tank survived

blueskies10

elsien wrote: »

To be fair, it's not her fault you've wrecked her decor. However inadvertently.

but it is her fault she cancelled her home insurance. This is where the situation is complicated because if she had kept it then this matter would have resolved itself