Flood Damage from neighbours

[anniebrown]

I live in a rented property, upstairs flat is also a rental. There are 2 different landlords for each property. Last week, the property upstairs had an issue with their water pipe which burst and flooded straight into our bedroom. The neighbours were on holiday so I had to enter the property using my emergency key to shut it off.

A lot of our bedroom was completely ruined. The landlord upstairs has said that we cannot claim off her insurance as it will only cover damage to the building, so we will have the ceiling and floor fixed, but our items such as ipad, mattress and laptop will not be replaced and we should claim off my own landlords contents insurance.

Is that correct? We put a claim in on our own insurance only to discover we had forgotten to renew our policy so obviously that isn't possible!

Any help is appreciated.

[des8]

Re: Flood Damage from neighbours

Hi and welcome.
Sorry to hear about your problem.
The upstairs landlord is technically correct in that YOU cannot claim off his insurance; only the policy holder can claim.
What happens is you hold him responsible and he then claims from his insurers under the liability section of his policy.
As far as you are concerned he is responsible, and if he fails to meet his liabilities you sue him. If he does not have insurance that is his problem, he will have to find what he owes you from his own resources.
You might like to point out to the landlord concerned that his buildings policy is almost bound to include a Liability extension for at least £5,000,000 if not £10,000,000 and I assume that will cover your losses