Leaking ceiling who pays? Help!

[donaldtramp]

Folks,

Got a problem with my girlfriends flat(On New Years Eve Magic!).
The ceiling in my girlfriends has been going slightly damp with 2 brown circles forming over about 6 months. It was growing at a tiny rate so haven't really paid much attention to it.
That was until tonight when water started running through.
The tenants upstairs were kind enough to let me in and I pushed back the bath panel and it was minging with Damp with mould everywhere. All the joists are soaked due to the landladys poor maintenance. She is damaging my flat ceiling joists and plaster due to poor maintenance! The tenants told me she is absolutely useless and on holiday now. I put some silicon around the bath panel to try to block any further leaks(there is no shower door).
I'm now worried about the state of the joists between the flats with all this damp and on closer inspection of our bedroom ceiling it is slightly sagging.

What legal rights do I have? From speaking to one of my friends who has apparently been through this I have no rights whatsoever. Surely this aint right? If she is doing all this damage can I not force her to fix it or sue her for damages or something? It's Scottish Law if that makes any odds.

Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated.
Cheers
DT

[blacksheep1979]

Don't know about the initial damage, but once she has had the fact that she is damaging your property pointed out then she will be liable. Hopefully the joists are in her property and she'll have to take care of that and all you'll have to do is skim the patch on the ceiling and paint.

Similar thing happened to a friend whose drains got messed up by a neighbours trees roots. The insurance company took care of it and informed the neighbour - asking them to deal with the problem tree. The neighbour ignored this and a while later the same thing happened again, this time the insurance company sued to neighbour.

Do you have insurance as they should take care of this for you?

[donaldtramp]

Have insurance yes. Was on the phone to them last night.
I need to force the neighbour to fix the leak and pay for the damage. My girlfriend shouldn't have to submit a claim or pay any excess for this. Her insurance premium will go up. Why should she have to shell out anything when she has done nothing wrong?

Is House insurance not like car insurance? Where my girlfriend's insurance pays and then claims everything back from upstairs.

[chopperclaire]

Can completely relate to the leaking ceiling as I had water pouring through mine Christmas Day!!!
I presume you rent a Leasehold Flat and your Landlord is either the owner of the Freehold of the whole building (ie person solely responsible)?
The reason this could be of importance as it is worth finding out who is responsible for the insurance for the whole building. You will obviously have insurance in place for your flat, but if it is a structural default from the flat above the likelihood is that the owner of the building would be solely responsible ie your Landlord. Does your tenancy agreement make any references to you having to insure, or as to what parts form part of the extent of the property. This may seem daft but if ceilings and floors are not specifically listed they can still be classed as the responsibility of the Landlord, hence they would have to rectify. I know the Landlord being away will not be much use, but as a Property Lawyer, I would recommend that both yourself and the owner of the flat above send a "Notice" to the Landlord pointing out the problem to each individual property and stating that they have 14 days to inspect and rectify the problem. Failure to do so will result in you arranging for the relevant work to be carried out with all invoices to be forwarded to the Landlord. I am sure the Tenancy Agreement will cover the fact that the Landlord is responsible for structural faults, which a leak from a flat above affecting your ceiling would be classed as.
Hope you get it sorted out!
Claire

[donaldtramp]

Couple of things have happened.....
Thanks Claire for the input. (Couldn't call you Chopper!)

My Girlfriend (Miss Tramp!) owns her flat and it is the Landlady above who is causing problems.(She only owns the flat above us)

Keeping the thread updated for anyone who comes across it(Might help), we've spoke to our insurance company who have advised us that we should send a recorded delivery letter demanding that the leak is fixed and that we wish to have a timber specialist inspect the timbers. We are doing this.

Apparently in Scotland the split between flats occurs half way in the joists between flats. Our insurance company have told us that we should be able to prove negligence on her behalf and how to go about doing so.
We have been advised by our insurance company to write down and date everything that has happened, with even what was said during telephone calls written down. We have done this.
-The landlady upstairs has admitted on the phone that the extractor fan in the bathroom has been disconnected for some time.
-That she has been aware of a damp smell in the bathroom for some time.
-We also have photos in behind the bath showing quite clearly the mould and fungus growing on her floor and the rotting floor boards. (Note to do this we asked the current tenants if "it would be possible to take photographs for our insurance company") This was a great move and the current tenants were only too happy to let us in to to this
-the current tenants have stated that she never maintains or checks the flat

The insurance company have stated that if she doesn't satisfy us within our allowed timescale (we chose 7 days) their legal department would take over for us. Not bad for us so far.

So it's looking good.
I'll tell my tale on here for anyone else who needs in future.
DT