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Hello,
I'm looking for some advice on a potential residential dispute with our insurers,
our situation is this:
our building insurance hired a building contractor to essentially rebuild our flat from scratch after a water heater on one of the flat upstairs completely flooded everyone below them.
After the works were completed we moved back in and noticed a noise issue with the soil pipe that runs through our flat, which essentially makes a bad knocking noise in the wall around it when someone upstairs flushes, which is loud enough to be a problem as it wakes us up through the night and its something that should be fixed as it wasn't present before.
We notified of this in September and the contractor and insurer did nothing until February when
they tried to fix the issue by dropping insulation in the boxing around the pipe, which didn't work, so now we're stuck at a stage where they need to access the flat upstairs.
I can see this situation continuing for a long while as the contractors have no interest in fixing the problem and the insurer isn't in any hurry.
We tried to put pressure by asking the loss adjuster alternative accommodation until the problem is fixed,
their response is that since the property is not uninhabitable and as it has not been established that the problem is due to the flood they're "unable to confirm that any costs will be picked up by insurers."
obviously our priority is getting this fixed as soon as possible, my questions would be:
what would be the best thing to do..
Is there any merit in our asking not to be affected by this issue while its being repaired/looked into?
Would there be any merit in asking for compensation while this is ongoing?
Is it possible to hire a surveyor and a different builders company that is better motivated to diagnose and fix the issue and charge the cost to the insurers?
ideally without escalating?
I'm looking for some advice on a potential residential dispute with our insurers,
our situation is this:
our building insurance hired a building contractor to essentially rebuild our flat from scratch after a water heater on one of the flat upstairs completely flooded everyone below them.
After the works were completed we moved back in and noticed a noise issue with the soil pipe that runs through our flat, which essentially makes a bad knocking noise in the wall around it when someone upstairs flushes, which is loud enough to be a problem as it wakes us up through the night and its something that should be fixed as it wasn't present before.
We notified of this in September and the contractor and insurer did nothing until February when
they tried to fix the issue by dropping insulation in the boxing around the pipe, which didn't work, so now we're stuck at a stage where they need to access the flat upstairs.
I can see this situation continuing for a long while as the contractors have no interest in fixing the problem and the insurer isn't in any hurry.
We tried to put pressure by asking the loss adjuster alternative accommodation until the problem is fixed,
their response is that since the property is not uninhabitable and as it has not been established that the problem is due to the flood they're "unable to confirm that any costs will be picked up by insurers."
obviously our priority is getting this fixed as soon as possible, my questions would be:
what would be the best thing to do..
Is there any merit in our asking not to be affected by this issue while its being repaired/looked into?
Would there be any merit in asking for compensation while this is ongoing?
Is it possible to hire a surveyor and a different builders company that is better motivated to diagnose and fix the issue and charge the cost to the insurers?
ideally without escalating?
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