Money Moral Dilemma: A fire at my house damaged my neighbour's place - should I pay for the repairs?

35har1old

fuserich said:

It is most unusual for an excess to apply to fire damage and I would check this. Excesses normally apply to storm, flood, burst pipes and subsidence claims. 

You can set higher excess to lower the premium the excess mentioned above are standard terms 
All policy's have a standard excess which apply to the both building and contents no matter what the cause you can alter it.
Reducing the excess increases the cost 

ripongrammargirl

Put yourself in their shoes if this was damage caused to your property due to their fire. How would you feel? In this day and age it should be compulsory for everyone in a property, rented or mortgaged, to have home insurance as it’s just ridiculous not to have it for a few pounds a month. You could have lost everything in that fire but you say you were lucky, but now the neighbour has suffered as well? That doesn’t seem fair as this is what insurance covers. To keep good relations and regret damage to their property because you chose not to buy insurance then I would help out with the damage caused by your fire. When you’ve done that, GET SOME INSURANCE!!!

ohit

Why don't you have home insurance!?

Graham_C

MSE_Kelvin said:

This week's MoneySaver who wants advice asks...

A recent fire at my house caused damage to my and my neighbours' properties. The damage to my place was small, which is a blessing, as I don't have home insurance. My neighbours' place suffered about £300 of damage, which is around the same amount as their excess, so they've asked me to pay them back for the repair costs. The fire was an accident, and I've been told that, legally, I don't have to pay them anything, but should I?

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If you had insurance then I presume that your insurer would pay for your neighbours damage caused by the fire originating at your property. As you don’t have an insurer then I believe that you should pay for the neighbours damage or, if their insurer covers this, then you should pay any insurance excess that they might incur through no fault of theirs.
But for goodness sake, imagine if the whole house burned down without insurance covering the cost, on either side. Get insurance!

Miosotis

I feel you should pay! I don't even care about what the law says, it wasn't their fault, and maybe not yours either but they have damage and bother because of what happened in your house. £300 is not horrendous, it could have been far worse. And if you want to go on having good neighbours, I would pay! 

Angry_Lettuce

Of course you should pay up: what kind of neighbour are you? The fact that the fire in your house started accidentally is beside the point: you'd be pretty stupid to start a fire intentionally in your own house, especially if you have chosen not to have insurance cover in place.  Likewise, the size of your neighbours' insurance excess is beside the point: at least they have insurance cover, unlike you. They are an entirely innocent party: the fire started in your property and you chose not to mitigate the financial risk, so it's down to you, chum.

keithyno.1

No, don't pay! It will have been your neighbour's CHOICE to take out a home insurance policy with a £300 excess, in order to lower their premium - home insurance policies with a zero excess are available on the insurance market. 

That's the chance they took, knowing full well that their property adjoined yours and so if a fire started in or around your property it could damage theirs. If it's come back to bite them on the bum, that's their look out. Why should YOU be out of pocket simply because THEY didn't take out adequate home insurance cover for THEIR property?! 

telsco

It's a bit vague as to what caused the fire damage. 
If you had a BBQ or bonfire get out of control then it's 100% your fault. If you had waste paper burn in the sun because you hadn't stored it correctly, then again it's 100% your fault. You should pay to fix it and offer extra for the damned inconvenience you've made to your poor neighbour.

pammieb

Legally, you probably don't have to pay and it's unfortunate that you had this accident.

However, the fire came from your house and they will be left with a £300 bill for the excess, if they claim on their own insurance, plus a probable hike in next year's  premiums. It's hardly fair on them, is it?

Try and pay it.... you never know if the gesture will be returned in kind, one day.

Good neighbours are a blessing and collectively  can form fabulous local communities who can care for and look out for each other. Handled correctly.💜

Igcomment

Yes of course and I hope you have been suitably apologetic.  Morally it was your fire - even if it wasn't your error; pragmatically good neighbourly relations are worth way more than £300.  A sincere apology, a bunch of flowers and pay their excess - it is the right thing to do and you are likely to reap the benefits in good will over the years.