ceiling fallen through in rented house

scrimper88

Our friends next door are renting and last night they woke at 4 am to fine water alover the bathroom floor. They went Dow stairs to find a leak in the bathroom had also caused the kitchen seiling to fall through and the kitchen was a good 4 inch deep with water along with all their electrical (microwave, toaster, a psp etc) the landlord (actually an investment company that own loads of houses in our village) have obviously sent people out to sort the leak and floor etc however they only moved in a few weeks ago and have realised they forgot to change address with their contents insurance.
Does anyone know where they stand with this?
I would of thought seeing as it's a property flaw that has caused the damage the landlord may be liable or they may be able to claim it through the landlords building insurance since its a building issue that has caused I as opposed to say being broken into for example or them leaving a tap on and physically causing the flood themselves.

Any help would be massively appreciated

haras_nosirrah

I believe they can only claim off the landlords belongings if they can prove negligence e.g that they told the landlord repeatedly that there was a leak and the landlord failed to act which lead to this scenario.

If they didn't inform the landlord of the leak then they couldn't be expected to fix something they knew nothing about so no negligence

In that case their only claim is their own contents policy which it sounds like they don't have so no claim

pmlindyloo

scrimper88 wrote: »

Our friends next door are renting and last night they woke at 4 am to fine water alover the bathroom floor. They went Dow stairs to find a leak in the bathroom had also caused the kitchen seiling to fall through and the kitchen was a good 4 inch deep with water along with all their electrical (microwave, toaster, a psp etc) the landlord (actually an investment company that own loads of houses in our village) have obviously sent people out to sort the leak and floor etc however they only moved in a few weeks ago and have realised they forgot to change address with their contents insurance.
Does anyone know where they stand with this?
I would of thought seeing as it's a property flaw that has caused the damage the landlord may be liable or they may be able to claim it through the landlords building insurance since its a building issue that has caused I as opposed to say being broken into for example or them leaving a tap on and physically causing the flood themselves.

Any help would be massively appreciated

Your friends may be lucky and the landlord has building and contents insurance.

However, usually tenants are expected to arrange their own contents insurance. This is often written into their contract. Have they checked?

Your landlord may be willing to give compensation for inconvenience, especially if the kitchen was out of action for some time.

Need to negotiate in a friendly way with the landlord and see what they might be willing to do.

dimbo61

PSP in the kitchen !
No contents Insurance
Microwave and Toaster will be sitting on Kitchen worktops so should dry out quickly
Landlord might pay out for all the flood damage they can only ask.
Going to be living in a building site for a few days/weeks

ACG

What is the excess on the insurance?

A new microwave/toaster can be bought for peanuts, how much is a psp? £70?

I bet you could get all 3 for around £100 if you shopped around, definitely under £150. If the excess is £100+ im not sure I would want to claim.

On a side note, if they call up the insurance company and say they forgot to cancel can they have the premiums back as they were insured for something they could never claim on they may be entitled to a refund?