Criss cross Tyneside lease - Insurance problem

[Jonno1969]

Hello,

In a nutshell....

I own the ground floor of a building with my neighbour owning the top two floors on a Tyneside (criss cross) Lease.

There is a subsidence problem with damage being done to the side and rear walls of the building and other smaller damage. We are both insured as per the leasehold/Tyneside lease terms.

The person in the upper flat has been then longer than me and over thenyears has also insured the foundations as well as the roff etc so has processed what has been a long and difficult Insurance Claim which hopefully is coming to a close soon, or so I thought.The insurance company are now saying that the cost of repairs exceeds the insurance cover!

Because of this the person in the above flat doing the claim, are now looking to negotiate a pay off from the Insurance Company in lieu of having the repairs done. They then says that as the money is his, that he will buy another property with the money, move out and the try to sell the damaged building at (or his part of it) at auction, leaving the current building in its current state of disrepair.

Surely the money from the insurance company has to spent on the repairs to the damaged building or am I being a bit naive?

Thank you for any help.

[atticus]

Tyneside leases: https://www.lease-advice.org/article...rief-overview/ (posted to help others).

[atticus]

Thinking about this, you need to look at the obligations in the 2 leases. In particular, if your upstairs neighbour has an obligation to insure, I would expect him to have an obligation to repair. Check the lease, and if such an obligation exists, hold him to it.