Home insurance insisting 50-50 with loss of excess

geilo

This relates to a problem with property in Scotland. Briefly...

...a relative lives in a ground floor flat in a typical Scottish 'tenement' building.

Since moving in 2 years ago, they have alerted the owner of the flat above to 2 leaks seemingly coming from his bathroom and which have penetrated their own bathroom ceiling. These were supposedly fixed.

Recently, my relatives have begun a total refurb of their own bathroom and in the process of taking down the ceiling, have discovered dry and damp rot over an extensive area of the supporting timbers such that a considerable amount of replacement and treatment needs to take place including the joists.

The home/building insurance companies are saying that as this is a 'shared' floor/ceiling my relatives must enter into a 50-50 claim, which means that they will lose their £550 excess and incur higher premiums at renewal.

How can this be when the owner above them has so obviously failed in his attempt to cure the problem satisfactorily and the constant leaking between the first reported notice in 2013 and a more recent leak in May 2014 has led to the damp and rot. Surely they cannot be held responsible for the failings of the owner above, especially when they have alerted him to the leaks as soon as they occurred and his actions have been inadequate.

Does anyone have experience of situations like this? Thanks for any help.

Nebulous2

I think you would be hard pushed to prove the leak caused the problems - particularly dry rot!

The company may be taking the path of least resistance, which unfortunately is at the expense of your relative.

Though thinking about that, when I lived in a tenement I paid for extensive wood treatment myself, it certainly didn't come from the insurance company. They may be quite lucky to get it for the cost of the excess.

geilo

Thanks for your thoughts Nebulous2. I see what you mean about the dry rot - that hadn't occurred to me - and as far as I recall, insurance doesn't cover that?

As you say, if they get away with just the excess they can count themselves fortunate. It still seems harsh though that they will in effect be paying towards the 'other' damage caused by the leaks but then I guess there will be small print somewhere that covers that.