Landlord's builder caused damage

BitterAndTwisted

Tenant lives on the ground floor and came home last night to find dust and rubble has fallen down the chimney into their flat. Everything in the flat completely covered in about a quarter of an inch of dust including a work-issued lap-top. A few photographs taken and the tenant decamps to local motel for the night.

Today, the landlord who lives on the first floor has talked about himself and the tenant "sorting it out between them" while landlord wants to go in and start hoovering. Tenant is reluctant to accept or decline this position as they don't have any contents insurance themselves to start a claim and believe that any insurance claim should be between the landlord and his contractor but landlord is now making sounds about the tenant and the builder liaising/negotiating by suggesting he stays out of it and puts them in touch.

What should be the tenant's correct position here, please? The dirt and damage to the tenant's property could run into thousands.

InsideInsurance

What damage has been caused by dust?

A claim against the builder would require you to prove negligence. The simple fact the dust came down the chimney doesnt automatically mean they were negligent in their actions.

No harm in allowing the landlord to start the cleanup operation

BitterAndTwisted

Why would the tenant need to prove negligence? The tenant has no contractual relationship with the builder, so surely they don't have to prove how the damage was caused, just that damage has occurred. Not being argumentative, just not understanding your point

So far, the entire flat, not just the room the chimney was in, has been covered in about a quarter of an inch in dust. Including clothing in wardrobe plus all electrical devices. At the moment it's uninhabitable, so the tenant won't be able to stay there overnight until it's cleaned up.

weejonnie

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Why would the tenant need to prove negligence? The tenant has no contractual relationship with the builder, so surely they don't have to prove how the damage was caused, just that damage has occurred. Not being argumentative, just not understanding your point

So far, the entire flat, not just the room the chimney was in, has been covered in about a quarter of an inch in dust. Including clothing in wardrobe plus all electrical devices. At the moment it's uninhabitable, so the tenant won't be able to stay there overnight until it's cleaned up.

No - you still have to prove negligence. IMHO The builder has a duty of care to the occupant - but he has to breach the duty by negligence for compensation to be available. At least it only has to be on the balance of probabilities rather than beyond all reasonable doubt.

InsideInsurance

If you want to sue someone it has to be for a reason - eg breach of contract, negligence, trespass etc.

As you say, you have no contract with the builder so there is no option there and so the torte of negligence seems the most obvious route to go. As the claimant it is up to you to demonstrate they were negligent in their actions.

Search on here and you will find a lot of conversations about negligence when it comes to neighbours walls collapsing/ tiles flying off and damaging their cars or upstairs neigbours having a leak and collapsing their ceiling.

Now with all of those cases the prospects are fairly low of winning the case where as with this there is a better chance but you'd still need to prove what they did wrong.

Having seen the effect of a chimney collapsing on the down stairs I suspect you are exaggerating just a little bit but it is fairly irrelevant to the matter as the same applies if its £9 or £9,000 of damage

BitterAndTwisted

I'm not exaggerating as I'm not the tenant in question and I haven't personally seen the damage, just photos of same.

The tenant in question is not confident that the landlord's builder actually has any insurance. So far, all questions about insurance have been met with evasion.

InsideInsurance

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

The tenant in question is not confident that the landlord's builder actually has any insurance. So far, all questions about insurance have been met with evasion.

Makes no difference if they have insurance or not. They'd sue the builder and it'd be up to the builder to decide if they want to deal with it personally or refer it to their insurers to handle.

There is no legal obligation for builders to have PL cover nor any central database to query to find out if they do or dont.

dacouch

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I'm not exaggerating as I'm not the tenant in question and I haven't personally seen the damage, just photos of same.

The tenant in question is not confident that the landlord's builder actually has any insurance. So far, all questions about insurance have been met with evasion.

I doubt the whole flat has 1/4 inch of dust throughout unless it's a studio. I think you'll find they're exaggerating and one or two rooms has a lot of dust and the other rooms have a sprinkling of dust

TSx

Remember as well that any claim would be on an indemnity basis (e.g second hand value) not 'new for old'

As has been said above, the key thing is that there needs to be some evidence of what happened. To prove a case of negligence, you need to prove three things

1 - the builder owed a duty of care to the tenant (easy)
2 - that the duty was breached (this is where you need to prove that this is not just an accident)
3 - that the loss suffered flowed from the breach (generally easy - just requires proving any damage was caused by the loss)

The best bet may be to get a builder out to give you an opinion on the cause of the damage and if it was foreseeable - they may charge for this, but it will be good evidence.

That all said, I would have thought a professional cleaning company could remedy most of the damage fairly easily (with the possible exception of electricals - although I'm not sure how the dust would have damaged a laptop unless it was face down so it got in the vents...

Vectis

This is between the tenant and the builder.

Why doesn't the tenant get a cleaner in and send an invoice to the builder to recover payment? Failing that, if they don't want to pay out and then invoice the builder, they need to start clearing up themselves.

While that's going on, I suggest the tenant arranges insurance cover for their contents.

And, as above, I'd take a guess that there's a bit of exaggeration going on here.