Who pays? (damaged router due to leak) Help!

Guest101

Lionel_Thinkbag wrote: »

Yeah, we have a contract with the phone company. What I meant was that the ha/management co had set it up so that company provided the building with internet/phone. We were given the impression that we had to use that company.

We dont own, we privately rent. Sorry for the confusion.

@guest: I have no idea, inside the flat our router plugs into the wall like normal, presumably that connects to this other thingy somehow.

Just starnge that there seem to be multiple 'thingys'. One i could understand. How very odd.

Does your contract state that you are liable for this thing? and when you set up the contract, what did they say?

To be honest, those two questions are more just incase they play hard ball. It's ludicrous anyway, you didnt cause the damage, the freeholder pays. Dont part with a penny.

kmmr

Is this just the BT junction box you are talking about? Does your landline phone work?

£140 is the standard BT cost too - so it could be that. If it is BT then they normally own and maintain everything up to the master socket (which in this case might be the junction box for your building). If the master socket/junction is working ok - they will look at the wiring between the master socket and the problem and will charge for that.

But it sounds to me like the problem is with the master socket/junction. The only way to find out is to get them out.

Guest101

kmmr wrote: »

Is this just the BT junction box you are talking about? Does your landline phone work?

£140 is the standard BT cost too - so it could be that. If it is BT then they normally own and maintain everything up to the master socket (which in this case might be the junction box for your building). If the master socket/junction is working ok - they will look at the wiring between the master socket and the problem and will charge for that.

But it sounds to me like the problem is with the master socket/junction. The only way to find out is to get them out.

Yes but they cant charge the tenant, i think that's the point.

19lottie82

Lionel_Thinkbag wrote: »

Yeah I'm not sure that it does, we have to go outside the flat to access it. We don't have contents insurance I'm afraid. We're on a top floor flat so we had a false sense of security - yeah yeah I know. Blame my husband, it was his flat before I moved in.

You prob know this, but get some, seriously. It could have been a lot worse.

Contents just doesn't cover break ins. If there was a fire you could have lost everything.

Mine is only £5 a month for basic cover.

closed

patch panel or switch, post a photo

Lionel_Thinkbag

kmmr wrote: »

Is this just the BT junction box you are talking about? Does your landline phone work?

£140 is the standard BT cost too - so it could be that. If it is BT then they normally own and maintain everything up to the master socket (which in this case might be the junction box for your building). If the master socket/junction is working ok - they will look at the wiring between the master socket and the problem and will charge for that.

But it sounds to me like the problem is with the master socket/junction. The only way to find out is to get them out.

No, the landline doesn't work. Now you mention BT the girl on the phone said something about Openreach, which I now realise is a BT company. Our provider is Chess though.

closed wrote: »

patch panel or switch, post a photo

Would if I could, but Im at my mothers now. It's a grey box, it has about 4 LAN wires going into it plus a power cable. Dunno if that helps.

And yeah, we'll be sorting some contents insurance out asap!

kmmr

Your provider may be Chess - but BT/Openreach own the hardware I believe. It's like gas - you can change suppliers, but in the end it's coming through the same pipes, which are owned and maintained by nationalgrid.

To be honest, if the fault was caused by the water then BT will fix it. If it is your internal wiring, then you (or really your LL) will have to cover it and it is unrelated to the leak anyway.

BT are quite good in my experience. They will probably cover any repairs up to the master socket in your flat. So unless there is genuinely a problem with the wiring inside your flat then I wouldn't expect that they would charge. That's only my experience though, others may have a different view.

Lionel_Thinkbag

^Thanks Kmmr.

I was just worried that they might say 'well the wiring has been damaged by the leak and therfore we're going to charge you' We're definitely sure it's water damage as the box thingy was dripping.

Anyway I've emailed the management company to get them to confirm that they'll pay if there should be a charge. If not I reckon we'll be giving in our notice and decamping to my mums!

Guest101

You do not owe for this, no matter who says what, dont pay. Its that simple.

Chess should've run a troubleshooting with you?

And also your freeholder or LL must pay for this, as it is presumebly included in your tenancy.

Lionel_Thinkbag

Guest101 wrote: »

You do not owe for this, no matter who says what, dont pay. Its that simple.

Chess should've run a troubleshooting with you?

And also your freeholder or LL must pay for this, as it is presumebly included in your tenancy.

Thanks, I will double check the tenancy agreement tonight. I'm probably being paranoid but I have visions of both companies passing the buck and us playing piggy in the middle.

Yeah Chess should have run a troubleshooting thing with us (pointless as it is) but whenever they transfered us to tech support we got cut off and then we ran out of mobile credit. I have now sent a strongly worded email from my husbands account asking them to call me.

When I first tried to report the problem they refused to talk to me because I wasn't my husband, even though I had the account number. Apparently there must be people ringing them up and reporting faults for fun! My husband works until 6.30 every night and they're closed outside normal working hours. He tried calling at work during a break and was kept on hold until his break was over. Their out of hours faults line is a joke - it just goes dead and theres no oppurtunity to leave a message.

So yeah, even though I could call them now they won't speak to me. Sent an email to customer services at 12.10 today and have heard nothing back. In short their customer service is utter poo.

I think I'm going to have to get a carrier pigeon :rotfl: