Flat flooded by leak from a flat above

Soakedthrough

I hope that someone can help. I own a flat on the coast (1 1/2 hours drive away) which my husband and I use every weekend and for all of our holidays - we did intend to spend the Christmas holiday there. For insurance purposes it is classified as a Holiday Home but we consider it to be our main home - where we live in the working week is a rental property and we spend all other time at our flat.
On the weekend before last I heard water dripping into the ceiling cavity in our bedroom. The flat immediately above our flat is empty and has no running water (the owner has been taking years to renovate it) and due to a previous leak experienced, I knew that the dripping water was coming from the flat above that. There are only the two flats above ours. The top flat, which I knew the water was coming from, is rented out by the owner through a letting agency. I tried to contact the owner and he was eventually reached on Sunday morning (the dripping water had stopped sometime during the night). So he was aware that there was a problem. I told the owner of the flat immediately above us about the leak and on the Monday morning they contacted the letting agents to make them aware of the leak. The owners of this flat also phoned the letting agents on Tuesday and Wednesday to try to make sure that something was done about the leak and I emailed the owner of the leaking flat several times in the week to get assurance that the leak had been fixed. It turns out that because the tenant had not contacted the letting agents about a leak and they were unable to get hold of him to get his permission to let a plumber into the flat, they did nothing and the owner did nothing. I arrived at our flat on Friday evening to find the bedroom completely flooded with furniture/bedding/carpet etc completely ruined and the room uninhabitable. (Although told by the owner of the offending flat that the leak was from the shower, there was a pool of brown water sitting on our bed and the flooded room smells like a sewer.) Nothing had been done about the leak. The owner of the offending flat told me that the letting agent was supposed to hand deliver a letter to the property demanding access in 24 hours on Friday (almost a week after the leak was originally discovered) but it turns out that they didn't do this, so the letter was finally delivered this Saturday and the leak supposedly fixed yesterday (Sunday).

I have contents insurance for my flat and the Flat Owners association for the building has Building insurance. When I contacted the company which insures my contents they told me that I would have a £350 excess to pay and that it would be better for me to claim through the insurance of the owner of the other flat which caused the damage, but it turns out that he does not have any separate insurance only the cover provided by the Building insurance policy. I would think that they will not pay for the damage to my furnishings etc. I have been told that the letting agents will consider claims made for the damage.
My question is: are they likely to pay not only for the actual damage to my flat and furnishings but all of the other expenses which I will incur in the course of getting my flat returned to the state it was in before the flood (various trips to and from the flat to assess the damage, employing builders etc., to repair and refurbish the room - and to be there while they do so - time and money spent on making insurance claims and reimbursement for time off work to get this stuff taken care of)? Also will they compensate us for the loss of use of our property for the time it will take to make it inhabitable again and above all, for the immense stress that we have suffered as a result of having our property flooded and our bedroom destroyed and the time and effort that it will take to get everything put back to how it was?
In short - do I need to take legal advice to get compensation for the loss of time necessary to repair the flat, for the loss of use of our flat and for the stress caused by an event that was entirely preventable if action had been taken in a timely manner? Thank you in advance for any advice.

RAS

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Guest101

Soakedthrough wrote: »

I hope that someone can help. I own a flat on the coast (1 1/2 hours drive away) which my husband and I use every weekend and for all of our holidays - we did intend to spend the Christmas holiday there. For insurance purposes it is classified as a Holiday Home but we consider it to be our main home - where we live in the working week is a rental property and we spend all other time at our flat.
On the weekend before last I heard water dripping into the ceiling cavity in our bedroom. The flat immediately above our flat is empty and has no running water (the owner has been taking years to renovate it) and due to a previous leak experienced, I knew that the dripping water was coming from the flat above that. There are only the two flats above ours. The top flat, which I knew the water was coming from, is rented out by the owner through a letting agency. I tried to contact the owner and he was eventually reached on Sunday morning (the dripping water had stopped sometime during the night). So he was aware that there was a problem. I told the owner of the flat immediately above us about the leak and on the Monday morning they contacted the letting agents to make them aware of the leak. The owners of this flat also phoned the letting agents on Tuesday and Wednesday to try to make sure that something was done about the leak and I emailed the owner of the leaking flat several times in the week to get assurance that the leak had been fixed. It turns out that because the tenant had not contacted the letting agents about a leak and they were unable to get hold of him to get his permission to let a plumber into the flat, they did nothing and the owner did nothing. I arrived at our flat on Friday evening to find the bedroom completely flooded with furniture/bedding/carpet etc completely ruined and the room uninhabitable. (Although told by the owner of the offending flat that the leak was from the shower, there was a pool of brown water sitting on our bed and the flooded room smells like a sewer.) Nothing had been done about the leak. The owner of the offending flat told me that the letting agent was supposed to hand deliver a letter to the property demanding access in 24 hours on Friday (almost a week after the leak was originally discovered) but it turns out that they didn't do this, so the letter was finally delivered this Saturday and the leak supposedly fixed yesterday (Sunday).

I have contents insurance for my flat and the Flat Owners association for the building has Building insurance. When I contacted the company which insures my contents they told me that I would have a £350 excess to pay and that it would be better for me to claim through the insurance of the owner of the other flat which caused the damage, but it turns out that he does not have any separate insurance only the cover provided by the Building insurance policy. I would think that they will not pay for the damage to my furnishings etc. I have been told that the letting agents will consider claims made for the damage.
My question is: are they likely to pay not only for the actual damage to my flat and furnishings but all of the other expenses which I will incur in the course of getting my flat returned to the state it was in before the flood (various trips to and from the flat to assess the damage, employing builders etc., to repair and refurbish the room - and to be there while they do so - time and money spent on making insurance claims and reimbursement for time off work to get this stuff taken care of)? Also will they compensate us for the loss of use of our property for the time it will take to make it inhabitable again and above all, for the immense stress that we have suffered as a result of having our property flooded and our bedroom destroyed and the time and effort that it will take to get everything put back to how it was?
In short - do I need to take legal advice to get compensation for the loss of time necessary to repair the flat, for the loss of use of our flat and for the stress caused by an event that was entirely preventable if action had been taken in a timely manner? Thank you in advance for any advice.

I would:


1: Notify the Landlord that you will be seeking your loss via the courts
2: Get quotes
3: Offer the Landlord a chance to settle
4: if 3 fails, carry out the repairs
5: go to court with a list of proveable costs and losses.
6: The letting agent wont pay anything, but the LL might get some money back from them if/when they lose.

Guest101

RAS wrote: »

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TL : DR


There was a leak.
OP reported it, the LL upstairs is inept. The letting agent is inept.
The leak got worse, flooded the flat (possibly - though unlikely in my opinion - the leak was from the toilet.)
OP wants to get flat back to how it was, but doesn't know how.

macman

You can legitimately claim compensation for your quantifiable losses, both time and labour, as long as you can prove them. Start going after 'immense stress' claims and you can expect a long battle.

Nobbie1967

I think your best bet is to claim on your insurance and then claim the £350 excess off the LL/letting agent. That way they are less likely to dispute it and it can be settled quickly. Your insurance company should be able to do most of the legwork rather than you managing the process.

anselld

Nobbie1967 wrote: »

I think your best bet is to claim on your insurance and then claim the £350 excess off the LL/letting agent. That way they are less likely to dispute it and it can be settled quickly. Your insurance company should be able to do most of the legwork rather than you managing the process.

Agree with this as the way forward.

Agent/LL have been negligent. They were legally entitled to enter immediately in an emergency regardless of their inability to contact the T.

eddddy

Nobbie1967 wrote: »

I think your best bet is to claim on your insurance and then claim the £350 excess off the LL/letting agent.
...

Be careful about doing this. It sounds like you have two homes and therefore two insurance policies.

You will probably have to declare to both insurers that you have made a home insurance claim. This will impact both your premiums for 3 to 5 years.

Weigh-up the increased premiums against the payout you would get from a claim (after the excess is deducted).

Soakedthrough

Thank you to those who have offered advice, although I am still not sure of the best way to go. If I claim from my contents insurance, I would think that my premiums will rise in the future, yet some posters seem to suggest that I will get no joy if I claim from the letting agent?

I am also surprised that despite the LL and letting agent being negligent in their handling of this - negligence which caused fairly extensive damage when if the problem had been addressed with urgency in the first place, it would have been minimal - no poster seems to think that legal action is advisable? The overall opinion seems to be (please correct me if I am wrong) that I claim for actual losses from an insurance company and suffer the consequences of their negligence myself, with no come back on them?

LittleMax

Soakedthrough wrote: »

Thank you to those who have offered advice, although I am still not sure of the best way to go. If I claim from my contents insurance, I would think that my premiums will rise in the future, yet some posters seem to suggest that I will get no joy if I claim from the letting agent?

I am also surprised that despite the LL and letting agent being negligent in their handling of this - negligence which caused fairly extensive damage when if the problem had been addressed with urgency in the first place, it would have been minimal - no poster seems to think that legal action is advisable? The overall opinion seems to be (please correct me if I am wrong) that I claim for actual losses from an insurance company and suffer the consequences of their negligence myself, with no come back on them?

Yes the overall opinion is that the best course of action is that you claim actual losses from your insurance and recover the excess from the owner of the upper flat.

What else are you hoping to claim through the courts for 'their negligence'?

Courts will also only award for actual losses - so yes you can claim against the owner of the flat for loss of use of your flat but you would have to demonstrate that you have incurred a loss. So for instance you may need to provide receipts for alternative accommodation if you cannot use the flat whilst it is being repaired. But if you simply stayed in the home you live in all week you would not have loss as this would not cost you any extra. You would also have a duty to mitigate your losses, so if you present a bill for staying in the most expensive hotel in the area and the Judge thinks you could have just stayed at your weekday residence they may not award this.

savingfortomorrow

does your home insurance have access to a solicitor?
speak to a solicitor- as would the owner of the top flat prefer to settle with you or your insurance company.
A strongly worded letter might remind them of the consequential damages due to their lack of action.

does your flat complex have a requirement for shut off devices to prevent floods? could management insist their instillation as some do. https://www.plumbingsupply.com/prevent_water_damage.html

http://www.nova-flo.com/flooding.php