We came back from holiday at the weekend to find significant water damage to our kitchen, including shorted electrics which had meant fridge and freezers were off for 5 days, spoiling food.

The tenants in the flat upstairs have told us they left a tap on and plug in the sink, which overflowed flooding their kitchen for up to 2 hours. Their sink is directly above the worst area of water damage, so it is pretty clear that is the cause.

The advice from the ABI and elsewhere is pretty clear that because the damage was caused due to them failing to take appropriate care, it is their responsibility, so not for me to sort on my insurance.

However what is less clear is whether I should be pursuing the tenant or the landlord for the damage. The advice is conflicting, This article suggests it is the landlords responsibility, via their buildings insurance. This one suggests it is the tenant who is responsible.

Anyone advise who I should be pursuing for this? I’m in Scotland if it makes any difference, not sure if Scottish & English law differ in this regard.

Which ever one has insurance that covers it. Some tenants insurance doesn’t cover loss or damage just contents

will your insurance not just recover costs from their insurance?

Isn’t this what you pay your insurance premium for? contact them and let them sort out who pays. Save yourself the grief of chasing landlord who will invariably point at tenant, who will point back at landlord…

I would have thought landlord as its fabric of the building that they indeed may take up with the tenants and their security deposit.

Are you a tenant?

Phone your insurer and let them have the hassle. That’s what you pay them for.

Well, the only people “liable” are the tenants it would seem – for doing something negligent. But in flats its not always clear and particularly as the damage is part buildings and part contents you may end up with two separate claims. Or maybe you’ll just claim against the tenants for the contents damage, and the LL will have to separately claim against them (or use his own insurance) for the buildings damage.

BUT

Sometimes you’ll find that your buildings / contents insurer will handle the claim for you (in the same way that car insurers will sort your car out and then make the counter claim against the other party if they were at fault). It would certainly be worth asking your insurers if that is a service they provide.

will your insurance not just recover costs from their insurance?

Unsure for many reasons and generally I’d just like to keep my insurer out of it as it is someone elses fault, not mine……..
1. I’m slighly paranoid that even flagging the incident with my insurer raises my risk profile and therefore premiums. There’s some evidence of this happening on car insurance. Therefore I’d like to keep my insurer out of it completely if possible.

2. It’s debatable whether I’m even covered. My buildings insurance doesn’t have accidental damage on it and some insurers would classify this as accidental damage even though it was a neighbour that caused it. But because of 1. I haven’t discussed that with them yet.

3. If I make the claim through my insurers (contents and buildings are seperate so 2 different claims) then I guess I’m just hoping that they go after the other party with the same tenacity that I would if I did it directly. If they don’t, for whatever reason, then I’m stuck with an excess and loss of NCB.

Just claim on your own insurance. If you’re bothered about an increase in premium, ask your insurers to include your uninsured losses in any claim they make against the tenants.

I’m struggling to see how the landlord can be liable for the negligent act of its tenants, but that’s just me…

I’ve never understood why people pay hundreds and thousands of pounds for insurance then when something happens choose not to use what they’ve paid for. Given that you could pay home insurance premiums for 50+ years any rise in premium for a couple of years due to a claim increasing your risk is going to be negligible compared to the premiums you pay out over your life time. The increase in premiums is recoverable from the negligent tap user.

Even if your insurance doesn’t cover the damage use the legal cover to go after the negligent partys insurers to get your repairs paid for rather than trying to do this stressful hassle yourself.

This is exactly why you pay premiums.

Getting your insurers to do the donkey work should save you a load of time, grief and hassle, and you will only have to pay and reclaim your excess, not the whole repair bill.

Going with insurers will also give you more leverage if there is any problem with repairs, or potentially if you have to move out while work is done.

I’ve never understood why people pay hundreds and thousands of pounds for insurance then when something happens choose not to use what they’ve paid for.

Even if your insurance doesn’t cover the damage use the legal cover to go after the negligent partys insurers to get your repairs paid for rather than trying to do this stressful hassle yourself.

To my mind I’ve paid them to sort out issues that are mine to sort out, in this case it is someone elses issues. For that reason I haven’t added on extras like legal cover, so that’s not much good to me. But regardless, it’s just a matter of opinion and wasn’t really the question in the first place. Is it the landlord or the tenants that should be pursued?

1. I’m slighly paranoid that even flagging the incident with my insurer raises my risk profile and therefore premiums. There’s some evidence of this happening on car insurance. Therefore I’d like to keep my insurer out of it completely if possible.

The hassle you save yourself is worth way more than the cost of any increase.

2. It’s debatable whether I’m even covered. My buildings insurance doesn’t have accidental damage on it and some insurers would classify this as accidental damage even though it was a neighbour that caused it. But because of 1. I haven’t discussed that with them yet.

All you tell the insurer is that you’ve got water damage from something that’s happened above, unless you witnessed the plug incident I wouldn’t even mention it.

3. If I make the claim through my insurers (contents and buildings are seperate so 2 different claims) then I guess I’m just hoping that they go after the other party with the same tenacity that I would if I did it directly. If they don’t, for whatever reason, then I’m stuck with an excess and loss of NCB.

You pay your money for them to do this stuff for you. Again, cost of hassle is worth way more than NCB (especially Home Insurance NCB which is usually tiny anyway)

Suspect damage to the fabric of the building (ceilings and walls) is the landlord. Damage to contents (carpets and furniture) will be the tenant.

I’ve been that tenant!

It was sorted out between the landlord and the fella downstairs. don’t know what agreement they came to.

Needless to say my tenancy was not renewed.

if other insurance industries are anything like the car industry the days of avoiding flagging the incident with your insurer are long gone.

Even if you did not inform your insurer when it comes to renewal and you have to answer the question about having made any claims in the last 5 years regardless of fault they would find out then.

The landlord will have landlord insurance that should be able to deal with this and also will then have a fairly good claim for the tenants security deposit, the tenants themselves should have reported it to the landlord in any case.

As pointed out by others, let your insurers do the work, it is what they are there for.

Tell your insurance company and ask them who is liable. 😉

I’ve never understood why people pay hundreds and thousands of pounds for insurance then when something happens choose not to use what they’ve paid for. Given that you could pay home insurance premiums for 50+ years any rise in premium for a couple of years due to a claim increasing your risk is going to be negligible compared to the premiums you pay out over your life time.

It very much depends on the amount of the damage. My view is that I really insure against ‘catastrophic’ loss – major theft, fire, flood etc etc. I always up my excess by a few hundred (or at least see what difference it makes to the policy cost).

Our car got hit outside the house by a stolen motorbike. Definitely a ‘no fault’ claim and we had protected no claims bonus. The repair was about £1500 from memory. Which was almost exactly what we paid in increased premiums over the next couple of years.

This really should be paid by the ‘third party’ part of the insurance of either the landlord or the tenant but that doesn’t mean it won’t increase your premiums anyway. I’d ask your insurance co.

2. It’s debatable whether I’m even covered. My buildings insurance doesn’t have accidental damage on it and some insurers would classify this as accidental damage even though it was a neighbour that caused it. But because of 1. I haven’t discussed that with them yet.

All you tell the insurer is that you’ve got water damage from something that’s happened above, unless you witnessed the plug incident I wouldn’t even mention it.

It’s critical information though. You can only claim for damage from another party if they are shown to have been careless or negligent in causing it. If it was simply a burst pipe then I’m liable, and will have to pay any excess and take the hit on my future premiums. But by having left a tap running, they have made themselves liable and can be pursued either by myself or my insurer. If I don’t attach blame then chances are they will just treat it as standard damage and I’ll take the hit.

So rather than having to find £1500 on the spot you effectively had an interest free loan for a couple of years. But yes I agree it does depend on the value of the claim but also how you value your time and sanity whilst having the hassle of sorting it out.

It very much depends on the amount of the damage. My view is that I really insure against ‘catastrophic’ loss – major theft, fire, flood etc etc. I always up my excess by a few hundred (or at least see what difference it makes to the policy cost).

+1

I’m perhaps overreacting in not wanting to notify them at all, and perhaps they can help give additional guidance. However I don’t want to jump straight into letting them deal with it and run the risk of them not being able to claim against the other party and me getting hit as a result.

But yes I agree it does depend on the value of the claim but also how you value your time and sanity whilst having the hassle of sorting it out.

+1 on this also. And to be clear, I’m not going to tie myself in knots trying to do this myself if it looks like it’s going to be difficult, I’ll get insurer involved at that point. Currently it’s all relatively amicable and straightforward, just unclear about whether it is landlord or tenant that should be responsible.

Doug, you seem to be searching for an answer that confirms what you want to do, despite the majority of the answers pointing you in a particular direction.

In that case, crack on and get everything fixed yourself and sue the tenant AND landlord for your damages and let them sort out who is liable. This is your civil right.

Then see how hard it will get actually getting hold of the money. Oh, and your premium will rise anyway when your insurers work out you’ve suffered a loss.

And to be clear, I’m not going to tie myself in knots trying to do this myself if it looks like it’s going to be difficult, I’ll get insurer involved at that point. Currently it’s all relatively amicable and straightforward, just unclear about whether it is landlord or tenant that should be responsible.

And then have your claim declined for late notification…

I have no intention of suing anyone, as above if it gets that difficult then I will definitely be using my insurer. But if we can come to an amicable agreement without involving insurance, or at least my insurance then it would be much easier for everyone. I mainly wanted to know if it was the landlord or tenant with whom I should be trying to reach that amicable agreement.

And then have your claim declined for late notification…

180 days is the notification period, I most certainly won’t be stringing this along for that long myself!!

1. I’m slighly paranoid that even flagging the incident with my insurer raises my risk profile and therefore premiums. There’s some evidence of this happening on car insurance. Therefore I’d like to keep my insurer out of it completely if possible.

It happens on car insurance because it’s statistically significant that if you have one no-fault accident you’re more likely to have another no-fault accident. One explanation for this is that you regularly use roads (or junctions) with higher accident risks in general, therefore you are at more of a risk. An accident is taken as a indicator of you perhaps driving regularly on more risky routes. The insurer doesn’t have detailed info about you and your movements personally so they have to go on what they do know.

When insuring a flat, it might be similar i.e. you’ve demonstrated you have careless neighbours. Your premium might rise using that logic*….. but you have to offset that against the potential that it could all fall through or drag on (e.g. due to dispute between landlord + tenant) and you end up with no compensation from the other parties. Your own insurance should be insuring you against that possibility too.

*I don’t know if will rise though, it may not. All flats bar the top floor carry this risk.

Right, assuming that insurance didn’t exist, you would probably have a claim (as in legal claim) against the tenants and the landlord. The tenants because they caused the actual damage, and the landlord because the damage to your property came from his property.

So, what about insurance: this is merely to cover a person from having to shell out thousands of pounds from their own pocket. Instead, the insurance company collects a risk-based premium from lots of people and assumes the risk on behalf of the insured.

What does this mean to the OP:

The long way to do it is to claim against the tenants and the landlord directly (the landlord and tenants can sort out ultimate liability between themselves). Inevitably they will pass it to their insurers and you’ll deal with their insurance company.

The quicker way to do it is to get your insurance company to do the legwork for you, especially if your insurance has legal cover as you’ll likely use this when the tenants’/landlord’s insurers give it to their lawyers to fight against the value. You’ll also likely benefit from your own insurer’s loss adjusters fighting your corner.

Just get on with bringing the claim and getting your house back in order!

ETA: not sorting this out because you’re worrying about increased future premiums is bloody idiotic..!

make sure it’s fully dry before you re-plaster

make sure it’s fully dry before you re-plaster

Yeah, it’s part of the reason why I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to get it sorted right here and now, as all that will happen is we need to wait for it to dry anyway, and while unsightly it doesn’t prevent me from using the kitchen currently.

On the topic of drying, anyone suggest whether I should get a dehumidifer into the room or if heating up and windows open will be enough?

Doug – I’m pretty sure someone on here not long ago claimed that house insurance premiums don’t work the same as car insurance and that any rise is likely to be negligible. Of course that could be utter bollocks but for the sake of the hassle and lost time to yourself I’d be going down the claim route. Assuming significant water damage means plastering, possibly wood, electrics and shifting everything to get at them, never mind any kitchen unit or worktop damage, that’s already a hefty bill.

And yes, get a dehumidifier in there, we had damp in our flat years ago caused by a leaky pipe next door, air drying did bog all.

I am a ll in england. My insurer told me I have no liability for flooding downstairs its their problem. My plumber flooded downstairs flat but accepted full responsibility and did their repairs at his cost. So I now insure as if upstairs flood me and dont cooperate I am on my own. English law btw.