Claiming refund for decayed food by Landlord due to freezer not working

poorcustomer

I am living in a rented house. My freezer stopped working and they replaced it 4 days after notifying them meaning a lot of my goods (meet, doughs) got decayed. Am I entitled for refund by the Landlord? I did not cause the problem. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

OP Might be better off asking the board mods to move the thread here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/house-buying-renting-selling

kayleighali

Do you have contents insurance? I know this is covered under my policy so may be worth checking yours?

poorcustomer

what is that? I never heard of!

poorcustomer

I am living in a rented house. My freezer stopped working and they replaced it 4 days after notifying them, meaning a lot of my goods (meet, doughs) got decayed. Am I entitled for refund by the Landlord? I did not cause the problem. From the agency they told me that Landlord says that this should go through the contents insurance and does not involve them. What does it mean?

Spies

You need your own contents insurance to claim for spoiled food, not the landlords responsibility imo. 

ThumbRemote

Do you mean you've never heard of insurance, or never heard of contents insurance?

Contents insurance is insurance cover for the contents of a house - furniture, personal possessions, etc. It is different to buildings insurance, which covers the building itself. Your landlord will have buildings insurance, it would be up to you to arrange contents insurance for your own items, if you wanted, but it doesn't sound like you have this. 

I doubt the landlord is responsible for the lost food. The breakdown isn't their fault, and the replacement was fairly quick. These things do happen. 

Sandtree

poorcustomer said:

what is that? I never heard of!

Never heard of Home Contents Insurance, aka just Home Insurance of which Building and Contents are two subsections?

Most cover freezer contents however not due to mechanical breakdown and the impact on future premiums is likely to outweigh the value of a claim if its your only loss unless your freezer had just been filled to the brim with your latest foodshop at Fortnum & Mason. 

pinkshoes

poorcustomer said:

I am living in a rented house. My freezer stopped working and they replaced it 4 days after notifying them, meaning a lot of my goods (meet, doughs) got decayed. Am I entitled for refund by the Landlord? I did not cause the problem. From the agency they told me that Landlord says that this should go through the contents insurance and does not involve them. What does it mean?

Items in your house are your responsibility. The landlord is not responsible for the contents in your freezer, but they are responsible for the freezer working if your contract states the house will have a working freezer. 

You identified a problem, and the landlord fixed it in a timely manner as 4 days is excellent. 

Hopefully you mitigated your losses by seeing if someone else had a freezer you could use, or cooking and using any food once you realised it was going off. 

Anything that was not able to be saved needs to be claimed by you from your contents insurance that you should take out when you rent a house.

It's the same scenario if you had a fire in your house. The landlord would be responsible for all the furnished parts of the house (white goods, bathroom/kitchen replacement, house structure etc...) and would claim on their buildings insurance for that, but you would then be responsible for claiming on your own contents insurance to cover the costs of your own possessions lost (e.g. clothes, duvet etc...)

If you haven't got contents insurance then unfortunately that is a gamble you take in life. 

Robin9

You seem to have got two threads going on the same topic.

From the vagueness of your replies I assume you have no contents insurance.

Rarely are freezer contents a complete loss -  you may well have to scrap ice cream but you can cook the meat. 

Alderbank

Many packs will say 'if defrosted use within 24hrs' but in practice 4 days in the fridge will be fine, certainly for raw meat or bread dough. Shellfish is the only thing I might be wary about.
The simplest 'first-aid' for when this happens is just ask neighbours to help out by hosting a few items each in their freezers. We have happily helped out like this a few times.