Neighbours fire

euanovsky

GDB2222 said:

@euanovsky you need to make a claim against both insurance policies ASAP. If you need money for hotel accommodation, you should ask for interim payments.

 You should speak to insurers, but you probably need a six months rental. You can’t stay in a hotel for months.

We had a major fire in our house, so I have some practical experience. I hired loss assessors, in the end, which was money very well spent!

Thanks. Do I need to hire my own loss assessors? At the moment we have a loss assessor appointed by the insurer. I have no direct contact with the insurer or the loss adjuster and I am mainly dealing with the managing agent. I have been pushing for direct contact with the insurer to no avail. 

We have just been told today that it would take at least 8 weeks to replace the front door so we are going to try to move to an Airbnb or somewhere with at least a kitchen. The insurer appointed a relocation agent which has taken over the hotel booking so we are now okay on the cash flow front. Staying in a small hotel is definitely not great and caused unnecessary strain in our relationship though I don’t blame my OH. We are both under a lot of stress and are trying to cope. Eating takeaways every day is not healthy either.

I have my own content insurance but at the moment looks like there have been no damage to our possessions. I’m hoping not to alert my insurer unless I absolutely have to claim.

Sorry to hear that you’ve been through a similar situation. Do you have any other tips or pointers that you could share?

Assuming everything is fully repaired would the fire have an adverse impact to the house price? Is this something I have to declare in future if I decide to sell?

coffeehound

Sandtree said

Its a culture that’s creeping over here like the no win no fee solicitors. Perhaps I have a hankering for the old ways you know when the postman walks on your drive and accidently stubs his little toe on that little stone you should have brushed away ‘’sorry guv my fault’’.. Now days just make sure house insurance is paid up.

Not really, what we are talking about is the damages awarded and no win no fee has had no impact on awards. With the Whiplash Reforms if anything the opposite is true now that minor soft tissue injuries are in the Small Track. 

This discussion reminded me of this gem

A man has successfully sued the NHS for £17,500 after cutting his hand while trying to murder his wife.

Dorinel Cojanu, 36, sued the public health body for "criminal negligence" while treating his injuries.

Mr Cojanu was was jailed for 11 years in 2015 for attempted murder for stabbing his wife with an eight-inch blade in the kitchen of their family home in Watford while drunk.

She was left with permanent scars after being treated in hospital for four months.

Cojanu, originally from Romania, attacked his ex-wife with such force that he was left with deep cuts on two fingers of his right hand.

Despite doctors declaring he needed immediate surgery, he was denied treatment due to security concerns at the Royal Free Hospital in North London.

The appointment was not rescheduled elsewhere in the necessary timeframe.

After being jailed in Bedford, Cojanu argued that the inability to treat him soon after he entered the facility had left him with life-changing injuries, so he therefore launched a compensation claim against the NHS.

He demanded £125,000 and said the reduced ability to operate his right hand in a normal manner prevented him from working as a manual labourer.

Cojanu only served five years of his sentence, and his compensation package included the payment of surgery in Romania and aftercare.

He was awarded £8,500 at a hearing in May 2021 by judge Mr Recorder Gibbons, but most of his claim was rejected on the grounds that Cojanu had been dishonest over how he incurred his injury and his loss of earnings.

The 36-year-old claimed that his wife had attacked him in an "altercation" and that he sustained his injury while trying to defend himself.

Cojanu appealed the decision at the High Court and the compensation was increased to £17,500 as a result.

The judge decided that his dishonesty was irrelevant in his civil claim against the NHS.

In his judgement, Mr Justice Ritchie said: “It matters not whether he had suffered the injury opening a tin of beans, in gang warfare or whilst attempting to murder his wife.”

He was deported back to Romania in 2020 after his release.

elsien

bris said:

Thumbs_Up said:

Sandtree said:

euanovsky said:
Thanks that is sort of broadly in line with what I was thinking. Just for my education how come people are able to sue for this kind of damage in the US but not in the UK?

Because they have a totally different legal system?

One of the key differences is that UK law is broadly based on the concept of indemnity, the "victim" shouldnt be out of pocket and is the "guilty's" responsibility to financially put them back in the same place. In the USA they have punitive damages which is that the "guilty" should pay $1m not because thats the loss the "victim" has suffered but to punish the "guilty" 

Most cases however do not include punitive damages, it creates some challenges with insurance, just for the "pain, suffering and loss of amenities" part the US legal system has decided a papercut is worth $500,000 whereas the UK will give £1 for the plaster/bandaide 

Like the woman who spilt a coffee over her lap in MacDonald’s she was initially awarded $2.7 million.   

Its also the reason the cups now have "caution contents may be hot" written on them. Yes it came about from that case and can never happen again because of those few little words.

But it's  the good ol USA there is always something else to sue for.

Because without those words no one buying a coffee would ever expect it to be hot. 

Sandtree

euanovsky said:

GDB2222 said:

@euanovsky you need to make a claim against both insurance policies ASAP. If you need money for hotel accommodation, you should ask for interim payments.

 You should speak to insurers, but you probably need a six months rental. You can’t stay in a hotel for months.

We had a major fire in our house, so I have some practical experience. I hired loss assessors, in the end, which was money very well spent!

Thanks. Do I need to hire my own loss assessors? At the moment we have a loss assessor appointed by the insurer. I have no direct contact with the insurer or the loss adjuster and I am mainly dealing with the managing agent. I have been pushing for direct contact with the insurer to no avail. 

We have just been told today that it would take at least 8 weeks to replace the front door so we are going to try to move to an Airbnb or somewhere with at least a kitchen. The insurer appointed a relocation agent which has taken over the hotel booking so we are now okay on the cash flow front. Staying in a small hotel is definitely not great and caused unnecessary strain in our relationship though I don’t blame my OH. We are both under a lot of stress and are trying to cope. Eating takeaways every day is not healthy either.

I have my own content insurance but at the moment looks like there have been no damage to our possessions. I’m hoping not to alert my insurer unless I absolutely have to claim.

Sorry to hear that you’ve been through a similar situation. Do you have any other tips or pointers that you could share?

Assuming everything is fully repaired would the fire have an adverse impact to the house price? Is this something I have to declare in future if I decide to sell?

You should keep receipts etc, it’s likely you can claim disturbance allowance to cover the fact that takeaways are more expensive than normal home cooking.  

Loss Adjustors and Loss Assessors are the same other than if they are appointed by the policyholder or “insurer”. Depending on who’s involved the true insurer may have absolutely nothing to do with the policy or claim outside of providing the ultimate backstop. Some simply get a quarterly report saying what’s been done under the delegated authority. 

As to properly prices… questions asked must be answered honestly. From memory the stock questions don’t ask anything you’d need to declare however a buyer is free to ask anything they want. 

euanovsky

FaceHead said:

It's a culture that's creeping to the UK, as seen the the OP's line of questioning. Someone does something stupid and an affected party sees and opportunity to sue for millions of emotional distress and inconvenience. 

If any such claim was possible, the upstairs tenant is unlikely to have the means to pay anything to the OP - they are a tenant who has just lost the contents of their flat and their deposit, which is likely to be the lion's share of what they own, which they now need to replace. I can't imagine they will e getting much sympathy from their landlord or content insurer (if any) as they have lit a BBQ that is expressly prohibited, and then forgotten about it. 

My thinking is that people should be held responsible for their actions. If they single-handedly caused an increase to the building insurance premium it is not fair for others to fund for their negligence. I understand life happens I guess I’m just annoyed that they had put us in this situation, which is preventable. I would have more sympathy if the fire was caused by an electrical fault which is beyond their control.

Sandtree

euanovsky said:

FaceHead said:

It's a culture that's creeping to the UK, as seen the the OP's line of questioning. Someone does something stupid and an affected party sees and opportunity to sue for millions of emotional distress and inconvenience. 

If any such claim was possible, the upstairs tenant is unlikely to have the means to pay anything to the OP - they are a tenant who has just lost the contents of their flat and their deposit, which is likely to be the lion's share of what they own, which they now need to replace. I can't imagine they will e getting much sympathy from their landlord or content insurer (if any) as they have lit a BBQ that is expressly prohibited, and then forgotten about it. 

My thinking is that people should be held responsible for their actions. If they single-handedly caused an increase to the building insurance premium it is not fair for others to fund for their negligence. I understand life happens I guess I’m just annoyed that they had put us in this situation, which is preventable. I would have more sympathy if the fire was caused by an electrical fault which is beyond their control.

But that’s how insurance works… they cover your liability, claims are normally vastly higher than premiums, the shortfall is paid for by other people who don’t claim. 

Mutton_Geoff

When you travel to the US these days, as soon as the aircraft door is open, there is a sign on the jetty that says "may contain nuts".

Thumbs_Up

A tragic case but the largest personal injury settlement was $150 billion (not a typo) even though the assailant hasn’t got a pot to !!!!!! in, I’m told here the American health service is expensive.

Where we should copy the Americans – The longest prison sentence was 9,300 years without parole, over here he would have got 2 years with good behaviour.     

Sandtree

Thumbs_Up said:

A tragic case but the largest personal injury settlement was $150 billion (not a typo) even though the assailant hasn’t got a pot to !!!!!! in

Robbie Middleton - Wikipedia

The assailant was a 13 year old boy who's now serving a 40 year sentence for the act

GDB2222

Sandtree said:

Thumbs_Up said:

A tragic case but the largest personal injury settlement was $150 billion (not a typo) even though the assailant hasn’t got a pot to !!!!!! in

Robbie Middleton - Wikipedia

The assailant was a 13 year old boy who's now serving a 40 year sentence for the act

The US approach of having juries deciding what to award as damages is clearly flawed, especially as the amount is normally appealed.