Flat flooded by leak from a flat above

Guest101

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?

Not what i said:

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.

You have no standing wit the letting agent, they are not the owner of the property, so suing them woul be waste of time. you sue the owner, he can deal with hi agent.

anselld

Soakedthrough wrote: »

no poster seems to think that legal action is advisable?

Read again more carefully!

I think most posters were agreeing legal action against the LL either for the whole amount or for the insurance excess.

The advantage of using your insurance is that you have less at stake in the legal proceedings and you recover most of your money more quickly. The disadvantage is you lose no-claims status.

No point sueing the Agent as they are simply an extension of the L.

eddddy

To me, the choice is as follows:

If you can prove negligence, claim the full amount from whoever was negligent (presumably, the upstairs LL). And take it to court if necessary.


If you can't prove negligence, either:
- claim on your insurance, pay the excess and pay increased pemiums, or
- pay the losses yourself


Claiming on your insurance and then claiming the excess from the LL seems like the worst of both worlds to me - you have increased premiums and a legal fight with the LL as well.

Rambosmum

You aren't particularly clear in what you are hoping to achieve- on the one hand you say you want the flat back to how it was, understandable and achievable, but the way you word it suggests you want some sort of 'justice' for the negligence, which although understandable (this must have been really distressing) is less achievable.

Legal action is appropriate but for what - the excess, yes or the full cost, yes but with the latter you'd likely have to pay out first or have a much longer wait than going through insurance.

I also know several people on this forum who have successfully gained compensation for motor claims through legal channels not only for excess but also for the increased premiums faced by declaring a claim. I'm sure this would be possible for home insurance, though isn't easy!

Atomix

Just a side-note - the amount of times you hear about a flat above / leaking through and damaging the flat below is ridiculous, surely an insurance policy automatically covers this when 'flat' is selected... It's a joke.

chappers

I'm sorry I don't see why the buildings insurance wouldn't cover the damage to your flat and it's contents.
I own a flat that was damaged under pretty much identical circumstances, with regards to a leak from an upstairs flat.
The buildings insurance paid out for damage to both the fabric of my flat and for damage to both mine and my tenants contents.

Megadebtor

I don't know why your insurer would suggest that you claim on the leaking flat owners insurance for the damage. That is not possible. You always have to claim on your own insurance.

Also buildings insurance will only cover damage to the structure of the property, not contents. As this is a block of flats you are likely to have a separate insurance for buildings and each owner will have their own insurance company for contents insurance although you may all have chosen the same insurance company.

I had exactly this problem once only I was the owner of the flat that leaked and the property below mine was not insured. I begged my insurance company to pay for the damage to content of the flat below but they refused.

You have a large excess and yes your premiums will go up.
So I would weigh up the costs of paying for the damage yourself vs the increase in premium. Buildings and contents insurance is only really worth claiming on when the damage is large.

I would also write a friendly email or letter to the landlord above asking for a contribution to the excess as it took so long for them to get access. However, legally the owner of a property that causes the damage has to show that they dealt with the problem speedily ie within a certain time frame. I don't remember if that means next day or within a week or longer. So if they contacted the agent that may count as dealing with it asap even though it did not get resolved immediately.

Hope this helps. And don't get me started on letting agents. They're the ones given landlords a bad name by just not doing as instructed.

FBaby

This thread doesn't seem to be so much what to do to claim damages, but what to do to claim compensation.

You are free to sue them for compensation, only you can decide whether the likelihood of a positive award is worth the potential cost (financial and emotional) of fighting for it.

chappers

Megadebtor wrote: »

I don't know why your insurer would suggest that you claim on the leaking flat owners insurance for the damage. That is not possible. You always have to claim on your own insurance.

Also buildings insurance will only cover damage to the structure of the property, not contents. As this is a block of flats you are likely to have a separate insurance for buildings and each owner will have their own insurance company for contents insurance although you may all have chosen the same insurance company.

That is not strictly true, in a case of negligence you will have grounds to make a claim.
In this case I would say that the claim has arisen from negligence as the owner of the flat failed to address the problem.
However if the flood occurred through lack of maintenance then you may not be so lucky.

Soakedthrough

Thank you all so much for your advice - and time taken to give it.

I contacted the company that handles my contents insurance again today and they have said that once they have settled my claim they will pursue the LL to recover the loss. The Letting Agent has given us a contact for claims for loss, but has not actually said that they will cover any loss - so I think that my best course of action will be to claim from my contents insurance initially?

I think that I will also have to claim from the Buildings Insurance as there is, apart from cosmetic damage, the possibility that the leak has caused some structural damage. The flat that caused the leak is not immediately above mine - there is another flat between us - so hopefully between the two of us we can get some kind of satisfactory ending. The gentleman who owns the flat above mine seems to be a little more aware of the steps to take than I am.

Thank you all again.