House Insurance Query

Dunringle

Situation: Parents deceased, Semi-detached house left to son and daughter 50% each. Son made exectutor. Son and family live in house free of charge. Son does not insure house. Daughter lives in her own house. 
Question :- If house goes on fire causing damage to adjoining property, son unable to pay the cost of repair to adjoining property. Can the daughter be held in any way responsible for costs of repair.

boaterSam

Son has not fulfilled his legal obligation as the executor of the estate. He is negligent.
As daughter is part owner, yes, she is liable for 50% of all costs.

Isthisforreal99

boaterSam said:

Son has not fulfilled his legal obligation as the executor of the estate. He is negligent.
As daughter is part owner, yes, she is liable for 50% of all costs.

It's not 100% clear where ownership currently lies? Is it still within the estate of now passed to the children as part of the will.

Not seeing what the daughter is gaining from the arrangement.

MyRealNameToo

Dunringle said:

Situation: Parents deceased, Semi-detached house left to son and daughter 50% each. Son made exectutor. Son and family live in house free of charge. Son does not insure house. Daughter lives in her own house. 
Question :- If house goes on fire causing damage to adjoining property, son unable to pay the cost of repair to adjoining property. Can the daughter be held in any way responsible for costs of repair.

Sounds like the first part was an irrelevance and the situation is simply that a pair of siblings own a house 50/50 as tenants in common but just one of the siblings live in the property. Is there any form of contract or deed between the siblings on what if any duty of care etc the one living in the property owes to the other? Any form of written agreement of what happens if there is major damage to the property and who contributes to its repair? 


What's the cause of the fire? 

Generally for the third party to make a successful claim they would have to show their was negligence by the party who they are claiming from. Negligence generally being doing something that a normal person wouldnt do or failing to do something a normal person would do. 

So if he was having a BBQ, used too much accelerant and set fire to the vegetation which moved to the property then there is a reasonable chance he could be held liable as the occupant of the building, technically by both neighbour and sister. 

Maintenance of the building generally comes down to the owner not the occupier so if he's known there was a gas leak, told his sister about it but they were squabbling over how to split the bill for the repair and in the meantime it ignited and caused damages to both properties then the neighbour potentially has a claim against either/both siblings 

The other consideration is we are talking about successful claims here... even if a claim is made that is unsuccessful it can be a fairly significant amount of stress and cost involved in defending which can't always be recovered. 


For example, in my brief time in banking rather than insurance, I was working for the asset financing arm of a bank who were typically financing small pleasure craft, fishing boats and light aircraft etc. It turned out they were part of a group of banks buying insurance to cover the risk that as the owners of the assets they had an outside risk of being accused of being responsible for injuries or pollution etc if the boat/plane crashed or leaked etc but most the other banks were financing container ships and jumbo jets etc. So certainly large professional firms are worried enough about the risk of being blamed as being the legal owner even if not the operator, having contracts saying the operator must insure it etc, so her risk is clearly not 0%. 

sammyjammy

MyRealNameToo said:

Dunringle said:

Situation: Parents deceased, Semi-detached house left to son and daughter 50% each. Son made exectutor. Son and family live in house free of charge. Son does not insure house. Daughter lives in her own house. 
Question :- If house goes on fire causing damage to adjoining property, son unable to pay the cost of repair to adjoining property. Can the daughter be held in any way responsible for costs of repair.

Sounds like the first part was an irrelevance and the situation is simply that a pair of siblings own a house 50/50 as tenants in common but just one of the siblings live in the property. Is there any form of contract or deed between the siblings on what if any duty of care etc the one living in the property owes to the other? Any form of written agreement of what happens if there is major damage to the property and who contributes to its repair? 


What's the cause of the fire? 

Generally for the third party to make a successful claim they would have to show their was negligence by the party who they are claiming from. Negligence generally being doing something that a normal person wouldnt do or failing to do something a normal person would do. 

So if he was having a BBQ, used too much accelerant and set fire to the vegetation which moved to the property then there is a reasonable chance he could be held liable as the occupant of the building, technically by both neighbour and sister. 

Maintenance of the building generally comes down to the owner not the occupier so if he's known there was a gas leak, told his sister about it but they were squabbling over how to split the bill for the repair and in the meantime it ignited and caused damages to both properties then the neighbour potentially has a claim against either/both siblings 

The other consideration is we are talking about successful claims here... even if a claim is made that is unsuccessful it can be a fairly significant amount of stress and cost involved in defending which can't always be recovered. 


For example, in my brief time in banking rather than insurance, I was working for the asset financing arm of a bank who were typically financing small pleasure craft, fishing boats and light aircraft etc. It turned out they were part of a group of banks buying insurance to cover the risk that as the owners of the assets they had an outside risk of being accused of being responsible for injuries or pollution etc if the boat/plane crashed or leaked etc but most the other banks were financing container ships and jumbo jets etc. So certainly large professional firms are worried enough about the risk of being blamed as being the legal owner even if not the operator, having contracts saying the operator must insure it etc, so her risk is clearly not 0%. 

I don't think there has been a fire, its a what if scenario that OP is concerned about.

Dunringle

Thanks to all comments, This suggests that the daughter would be responsible for at least 50% in any claim

MyRealNameToo

sammyjammy said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Dunringle said:

Situation: Parents deceased, Semi-detached house left to son and daughter 50% each. Son made exectutor. Son and family live in house free of charge. Son does not insure house. Daughter lives in her own house. 
Question :- If house goes on fire causing damage to adjoining property, son unable to pay the cost of repair to adjoining property. Can the daughter be held in any way responsible for costs of repair.

Sounds like the first part was an irrelevance and the situation is simply that a pair of siblings own a house 50/50 as tenants in common but just one of the siblings live in the property. Is there any form of contract or deed between the siblings on what if any duty of care etc the one living in the property owes to the other? Any form of written agreement of what happens if there is major damage to the property and who contributes to its repair? 


What's the cause of the fire? 

Generally for the third party to make a successful claim they would have to show their was negligence by the party who they are claiming from. Negligence generally being doing something that a normal person wouldnt do or failing to do something a normal person would do. 

So if he was having a BBQ, used too much accelerant and set fire to the vegetation which moved to the property then there is a reasonable chance he could be held liable as the occupant of the building, technically by both neighbour and sister. 

Maintenance of the building generally comes down to the owner not the occupier so if he's known there was a gas leak, told his sister about it but they were squabbling over how to split the bill for the repair and in the meantime it ignited and caused damages to both properties then the neighbour potentially has a claim against either/both siblings 

The other consideration is we are talking about successful claims here... even if a claim is made that is unsuccessful it can be a fairly significant amount of stress and cost involved in defending which can't always be recovered. 


For example, in my brief time in banking rather than insurance, I was working for the asset financing arm of a bank who were typically financing small pleasure craft, fishing boats and light aircraft etc. It turned out they were part of a group of banks buying insurance to cover the risk that as the owners of the assets they had an outside risk of being accused of being responsible for injuries or pollution etc if the boat/plane crashed or leaked etc but most the other banks were financing container ships and jumbo jets etc. So certainly large professional firms are worried enough about the risk of being blamed as being the legal owner even if not the operator, having contracts saying the operator must insure it etc, so her risk is clearly not 0%. 

I don't think there has been a fire, its a what if scenario that OP is concerned about.

I know, hence asking what sort of scenario they are considering. 

Dunringle said:

Thanks to all comments, This suggests that the daughter would be responsible for at least 50% in any claim

No, it suggests that she could be responsible for certain scenarios but certainly not all. If you look at your own Home insurance you will see that the Buildings section has a third party liability section for you as the owner of the property and the Contents section has a third party liability section for you as the occupier of the property. 

She is no the occupier so won't be liable for anything the occupier is liable for but she is an owner so could be liable for that depending on the answers to the other questions. 

It also depends on the actions of the other party, if they dont know she's the owner they may sue just her brother, or he may call her as co-defendant. If he doesnt then he alone stands to be liable but a solicitor may do a search and find she is co-owner and so sue both of them. 

In most cases the fire isnt an act of negligence in which case the neighbour ultimately will pay their own repairs 

Linton

A more likely problem for the son is that as executor he is responsible for the safeguarding of the house for the benefit of the beneficiaries.  Should the house be damaged but is not insured the son could be held personally responsible for the costs.

Brie

Linton said:

A more likely problem for the son is that as executor he is responsible for the safeguarding of the house for the benefit of the beneficiaries.  Should the house be damaged but is not insured the son could be held personally responsible for the costs.

So if the house burnt to the ground he would owe sister half the house value (excusing a portion for the land perhaps)??

MyRealNameToo

Brie said:

Linton said:

A more likely problem for the son is that as executor he is responsible for the safeguarding of the house for the benefit of the beneficiaries.  Should the house be damaged but is not insured the son could be held personally responsible for the costs.

So if the house burnt to the ground he would owe sister half the house value (excusing a portion for the land perhaps)??

Depends... has probate settled or not, read to me like the death was some time ago. Secondly are they joint tenants or tenants in common