water damage from neighbour again, insurance or court claim?

[maybelline]

a couple of year back my neighbour had a major leak and the water came through the wall into my property (semi detached) and damaged the wall, I had to use my buildings insurance to repair and they contacted owners insurers, all seemed fine.

now they have another leak!??? I am so frustrated, the water comes through the wall and can be seen outside coming through the bricks, the tenants say the water from the bathroom is coming into the kitchen and no matter how many times they ask the landlord to fix it he does a botch job on the cheap, (IMO) and the problem remains.

what can I do to get this irresponsible owner who is a bit of a mystery to sort this out?

[maybelline]

would this get a better response in a different thread mods, any ideas

[bingobarnes]

Hi I'm not sure if you got any help elsewhere. I've had a very similar problem myself with my neighbour in the upstairs flat.

In my case my neighbour refused to pay-out (as did her insurance company) arguing that the flood damage was not foreseeable. Thankfully in your case it seems common sense prevailed.

Clearly this problem is on-going. I think the same approach as before needs to be taken; though why it should come off your policy is beyond me. My feeling is that the neighbour or whoever should pay on their policy or in the alternative pay any excess on your policy and/or make any payment needed to protect your no claims bonus (though i suspect you may have none if you made a claim last time).

With regards to getting the problem fixed i think simply economics need to be applied. They need to realise that every time there is a problem they will need to pay out. The time and expense to them of doing so will be far greater than simply rectifying this. Sadly not everyone sees such logic.

Just one thing to consider, in my case the only option i had was to take my neighbour to the small claims court. As the bill was £300 i absorbed the costs myself as you need to bear in mind that if you ever sue a neighbour (or indeed settle out of court) this is arguably discloseable when you sell a property. This may or may not impact on your ability to sell a property - particularly at the moment when the housing market is so poor.

Hope this is of some help.

BB

[maybelline]

thanks, hope we dont get as far as court with this but nothing else seems to have helped, neither water co nor council, planning, building control or environmental have any power to act.

we will see.