Ins claim refused - retaining wall

workingboy

A wall which according to the deeds I am responsible for.

This wall is a retaining wall holding next doors garden from 1M to 1.6M high and the whole wall front and rear is flush with the side of next doors house.

The houses and walls are of 34 years old. One part has cracked and started to lean with the pressure etc from their garden.

I applied to make a claim and was refused, because they said its because of the water in the ground in next doors garden.:: :shocked:

[Deleted User]

That sounds correct. Insurance doesn't cover lack of maintenance.

workingboy

Thanks

But how can a lack of maintenance by I or next door be held or control the amount of water that falls from the sky to saturate the soil ?

The wall was built by the developers when constructing the estate as the houses are on a slope.

Aretnap

It's less whether it was 'lack of maintenance' and more whether it was caused by an insured peril.

Your policy will have several sections listing the things that it covers (perils in the jargon) and to make a claim you have to be able to say which section your claiming under - fire, storm damage, subsidence, flooding etc etc. If you can't link the damage to one of the perils, it means that it isn't covered.

The most relevant section is probably the subsidence section. However many policies exclude damage to secondary structures like garden walls and outbuildings from their subsidence sections - cover is often restricted to the main building. So you need to read the policy carefully and see what exactly it says about subsidence.