Colleague's home flooded - responsible for neighbour's costs?

keystone

martin2345uk wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for all the useful replies. I'll just point out again that (touch wood) this isn't my house that's flooded but a woman in my office. Who's now on leave due to stress! One aggravating factor I only found out yesterday is she's already in the middle of a long standing feud with this neighbour; this really hasn't helped that! :-/

Right then - you really only have one choice:



Cheers

cyclonebri1

macman wrote: »

All house insurance covers 3rd party liability, but that doesn't mean that in this particular instance the insurers admit liability, since the leak could not have been predicted, and therefore was not presumably negligent.
Your colleague does not have to do anything. If her neighbour thinks she has a case, then her only course of action is to start her own civil action at her own expense (in the absence of any insurance). It's for her to prove, not for your colleague to disprove.
If she can't be bothered to 'afford' basic home insurance, then I doubt that she can afford to sue anyone.

I think that is for damage to persons not to property.

Factual case.
We bought a car for our eldest daughter as a xmas suprise. I was delivered to our house 3 day pre xmas by the owner.
Christmas eve we has a severe storm, at least 5 tiles flew of the neighbours roof denting all 1 side and the roof and bonnet, the car was virtually a right off.

The neighbours were very apologetic, but that's all we got, their insurer didn't want to know, they stated that the car should have been insured in it's own right and would not pay out.

Now obviously I looked into this, it seems it's a lucky dip, so insurers would have covered it, and some wouldn't.
The irony is that if it had have been my roof, my insurer would have paid out.

So technically my fault for not having the car insured.

Just to add, a few years later this happened again, it was my same daughters car, but this time a brand new Mini on demo from BMW, roof tile straight through the sunroof. Now there was no issue, the BMW agency insurance covered it, but it meant I had to issue the neighbours with a written document detailing all that had happened and stating that as they had neglected to make the roof good and I had sustained further damages, they would be held negligent for any further similar damage.

All I'm getting at is it's pretty difficult to prove negligence for a 1 off.

macman

To repeat, your colleague has to do absolutely nothing. If the neighbour thinks she has a civil case, then let her take one, and deal with it then. Otherwise ignore it.

dacouch

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

I think that is for damage to persons not to property.

Factual case.
We bought a car for our eldest daughter as a xmas suprise. I was delivered to our house 3 day pre xmas by the owner.
Christmas eve we has a severe storm, at least 5 tiles flew of the neighbours roof denting all 1 side and the roof and bonnet, the car was virtually a right off.

The neighbours were very apologetic, but that's all we got, their insurer didn't want to know, they stated that the car should have been insured in it's own right and would not pay out.

Now obviously I looked into this, it seems it's a lucky dip, so insurers would have covered it, and some wouldn't.
The irony is that if it had have been my roof, my insurer would have paid out.

So technically my fault for not having the car insured.

Just to add, a few years later this happened again, it was my same daughters car, but this time a brand new Mini on demo from BMW, roof tile straight through the sunroof. Now there was no issue, the BMW agency insurance covered it, but it meant I had to issue the neighbours with a written document detailing all that had happened and stating that as they had neglected to make the roof good and I had sustained further damages, they would be held negligent for any further similar damage.

All I'm getting at is it's pretty difficult to prove negligence for a 1 off.

The liability cover on a home Insurance covers property and damage to people etc.

The wording of the cover is to the effect of "sums you are legally liable for"

The above in effect means amounts a court would rule against you for. The test being would a court of law find their customer "legally liable for".

A court in effect what looks at whether the incident could "reasonably" been avoided. It does not look at if the person had spent thousands of pounds on preventative measures just in case. It's could the OP's leak been reasonably predicted, when discovered did they act reasonably eg switching off the water and getting it fixed.

If the op had a history of problems with water leaking and had not taken measures to prevent it then they may be found liable but generally not for a one off leak.

Your example of the rood tiles, a successful claim against liability would generally hinge on proving the roof was badly maintained and / or maintenance issues had been ignored etc.

Roof tiles being blown off on a windy day would not necessarily mean the home owner was liable. You would need to prove they had acted negligently eg not maintained their roof.

There's case law that a driver with no previous medical problems who has a heart attack or seizure etc and drove into a bus stop full of people for the Car Insurers not to need to pay any claims.

cyclonebri1

macman wrote: »

To repeat, your colleague has to do absolutely nothing. If the neighbour thinks she has a civil case, then let her take one, and deal with it then. Otherwise ignore it.

Absolutely:T

Dacouch, that's what I was saying, to prove negligence I had to have a history of neglect, the 1st time around that wasn't possible, after the 3rd time, (didn't mention this earlier), when no damage was done but 3 tiles landed where they would have taken my head off had I been at the doorstep, I had grounds.

In a nutshell negligence almost has to be proved to be persistent.;);)

missesther

Let me get this right, if a leak occurs from my neighbour's house and damages mine, I would claim from my buildings or contents insurance?

I would first think buildings simply because any damage to fixtures within a house is covered by that. I was under the impression, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that is is a legal requirement of homeowners to have buildings insurance. if this is all correct then isn't the neighbour breaking the law by not having insurance?

UPDATE: I just read up and apparently if I own my property outright I am not legally required to have buildings insurance.

ic

There's no legal obligation to have buildings insurance at all - its just mortgage lenders have it as a condition of the mortgage that you must have buildings insurance. Its also pretty foolish not to insure - there's too much at stake!

cyclonebri1

Yep, not a legal requirement but insane if you own and don't.

I know of 2 people who have had their properties destroyed by fire whilst uninsured, again, insanity

macman

The 'car damaged by falling tiles' analogy is not the same thing at all , because of the need to prove negligence by the owner of the roof. Only ever going to suceed if the claimant had warned the owner that the tiles were loose and likely to fall at some point.
But I'm baffled as to why you would buy a car and leave it uninsured outside the house (on the public road?). Apart from the obvious risk of it then having no cover for theft or fire/malicious damage, it's also an offence which leaves the car liable to seizure for having no insurance.

cyclonebri1

macman wrote: »

The 'car damaged by falling tiles' analogy is not the same thing at all , because of the need to prove negligence by the owner of the roof. Only ever going to suceed if the claimant had warned the owner that the tiles were loose and likely to fall at some point.
But I'm baffled as to why you would buy a car and leave it uninsured outside the house (on the public road?). Apart from the obvious risk of it then having no cover for theft or fire/malicious damage, it's also an offence which leaves the car liable to seizure for having no insurance.

Steady on Macman, the car was planned to be on the drive for 3 days until Xmas.

She didn't know about it, the insurance was due to be swapped when she did.

And also bare in mind this was over 10 years ago, it wasn't necessary to register a car of road or uninsured then.

Yes, I learnt my lesson, it cost me £1100 to get it fixed.

So rewind your imagination a little please