Damage caused by neighbour

[Kingster]

Anyone happen to be knowledgable about claiming against a neighbour when they damage your property?

 

This relates to a downstairs flat I own that I rent out to my company as an office. Last week while I was on holiday the upstairs neighbour had a bodged shower fitted which then flooded and caused my ceiling to collapse. 

 

Now he says that I have to claim on my insurance and then they claim off his. My insurance says they only go after the third party if they were negligent and a leak is often seen as an accident.

 

So I’d end up with a claim and a £200 excess for something completely not my fault plus all the lost time and hassle of clearing up the total bomb site of a mess. 

 

He also said his insurance would cover the excess but only after I pay it. 

 

I reckon this is a load of bs. 

 

Anyone know where I actually stand (apart from in a pile of wet plasterboard)?

[Dommo]

I had this with my flat. In the end, I fixed it myself as the damage wasn't that bad (less than the excess). As it was buildings insurance, it was the same policy for the flat above so wouldn't have mattered.

 

edit: From the research I did, it would have had to have involved negligence for the other property to have been "at fault".

[Mole]

A number of years ago the son of a neighbor smashed my front door glass..I asked him to pay. He agreed but never paid. I repaired the glass. After repeated requests I went to small claims caught and got full costs recovered.

Why should you claim on your insurance..he has damaged your property and therefore I would have thought he should pay for the repair.. you going to YOUR insurance should not necessarily be your first action.

I would get an estimate to repair and then put it in writing that you want him to pay etc..if not take him to small claims court if within the limit..

Unless of course there is some legal difference with properties etc..

[B.RAD]

Yeah had this a few years ago when our neighbours set fire to their shed, which caused a mass of damage to our house. In the first instance, their insurance is supposed to cover the costs of repairs to your property, for which they'll need to send out an assessor. There should be no claim against your insurance as you are not at fault and the damage is a consequence of their actions.

 

Unfortunately, in our circumstance, our neighbour didn't have any insurance, so we had to claim through ours. Our insurance co tried to reclaim the losses from them personally, but after a year of evasion, they gave up so we lost our excess and our premium went up. 

[Mighty Mart]

Difficult one to be honest, and sorry to hear of your issue. I'm certainly no expert

However.....

I suspect he / she / they didn't want the flood any more than you, and its not their fault you live below them?

If you had the misfortune to have a fire, and destroyed their flat above, I suspect your insurance wouldn't cover them...they would be claiming on theirs?

Yo say it was a bodged job - did they do it or pay for someone else to install - if they are a bona fida set up, surely their work is insured? Can you / should you claim from them?

If they fitted themselves and bodged it, maybe it could be proven negligent?

Hope it gets resolved to your satisfaction anyhow.

Mart.

[B.RAD]

@Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO have you tried getting advice from  our friendly club sponsor @A-Plan Insurance THATCHAM

[MrPid]

You have a duty at all times to mitigate any loss suffered.

 

Your insurance is the best place to start, they will repair the damage (mitigate your loss), and then use all their phenomenal power to recover the money from the tenant's insurer upstairs.

 

This is good as you get your property fixed, quickly at little expense, you dont have the stress of dealing with any legal proceedings and it also reduces any bad feeling as people dont see it as such a "personal" attack.

[DonPeffers]

19 hours ago, Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO said:

Anyone happen to be knowledgable about claiming against a neighbour when they damage your property?

 

This relates to a downstairs flat I own that I rent out to my company as an office. Last week while I was on holiday the upstairs neighbour had a bodged shower fitted which then flooded and caused my ceiling to collapse. 

 

Now he says that I have to claim on my insurance and then they claim off his. My insurance says they only go after the third party if they were negligent and a leak is often seen as an accident.

 

So I’d end up with a claim and a £200 excess for something completely not my fault plus all the lost time and hassle of clearing up the total bomb site of a mess. 

 

He also said his insurance would cover the excess but only after I pay it. 

 

I reckon this is a load of bs. 

 

Anyone know where I actually stand (apart from in a pile of wet plasterboard)?

 

If your insurer says they only recover losses in cases of negligence, and not accidents, how do they deal with motor claims?  Sounds utter BS so I would speak to a manager at the insurer or better still email and keep a record of what they are stating.

 

I would ask the neighbour the name of company that fitted the shower and do they have liability insurance (they should) and your insurer will reclaim losses from them possibly including your excess if you have legal cover; otherwise you might have to claim the excess thru small claims court at about £25 premium.

 

Going thru your insurer will get the repairs done quickly and professionally.

 

Good luck.

[Blatman]

On 14/07/2019 at 20:41, Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO said:

My insurance says they only go after the third party if they were negligent and a leak is often seen as an accident.

 

Do you have legal cover? If yes ask if you can speak to them about what happens next.

If not why not have a chat with a solicitor on a "fixed fee" interview basis. I've done this a few times. Cost was around 50 quid each time (I'm in London so I might [MIGHT] paying a little more) and believe me it was money very well spent each time.

And since when did insurance companies have the right to surrender your money/premiums/excess so easily? I think they've forgotten who works for who in this deal!!!

[Kingster]

33 minutes ago, Blatman said:

Do you have legal cover?

I’ll check. But I do have a mate who’s a retired Lawyer. He came out with a load of terms I didn’t understand that basically said the insurance companies were a bunch of lying b*******’s

 

Edit: something about insurance is purely indemnity and it’s the other party who is responsible type of thing. Can’t remember as wine was involved 😆

[Blatman]

Well I'm not a lawyer, but I'm also not scared of reminding the insurance companies of their responsibility in the relationship. Their job is to indemnify ME against losses, not tell me that my losses are essentially un-insured whilst at the same time taking an insurance premium. There's something wrong with that picture...

[stephenh]

Who organises the building insurance? Usually with a block of flats, the freeholder arranges the buildings insurance for the whole block, and re-charges the premium to the individual leaseholder owners, for precisely the reason that damage like this can affect more than one of the individual flats, and then (with individual insurances) there can be an argument as to which insurer should be responsible for which bit of the damage. Also, as to the structure of the building, it is in the interests of each leasehold owner to be sure that the whole building is adequately insured, hence the sense of the whole building being covered by one policy which all the leaseholders can claim on.

If that is not the case here, then it sounds to me that the lease terms are defective. 

[Kingster]

It’s a Tyneside Flat. They have their own very odd freehold arrangement - bit of a one off!

[Howden Insurance - Specialist Vehicle]

Is there any way of getting your neighbours insurance details? You could try contacting the Third Party insurers directly if you definately do not want your insurers involved.

 

Another option as above is legal cover - as you say it wasn't your fault so they are likely to look into - worth mentioning that you can still use legal cover if not on your policy by looking into things like no win no fee, but if not on your policy then you may find if you win they may take a % of payout, having legal cover on your policy means you would get the full payout.

 

All in all, you may find your own insurers the best route - because it means you get your repairs underway and they will have the means in place to try and recover costs from the third party insurers and they'll be aware of the process involved. It depends if you weigh up the costs of repairs and the impact a claim may have on your insurance if they cannot recover costs. Your insurers should be able to talk you through the process though and have a discussion over the options available to you.

 

It sucks that this has happened but I would call your insurers and ask for advice, maybe speak to the claims team directly? Or speak to your neighbours and ask for their insurance details and contact them for a similar conversation.

 

Carlie

 

 

[Kingster]

Thanks Carlie 👍