AIBU in asking for this compensation?

[namechangeyetagain1]

Posting in AIBU for traffic but if anyone feels another thread would be better - please let me know! Also posting on behalf of a friend!

Friend has bought a new build house and has part-ownership with housing association (not sure this is relevant but going to give all the facts)

6 days after moving in she decides to have a bath. She has used bath before as the shower is over it, but not filled it properly. Once she's finished and has gone downstairs, she realises the bathwater is coming through the ceiling/light fittings/dripping down walls. It's also soaked into her brand new carpet she's just had fitted.

She turns off the downstairs electrics, phones the housing association and developers of the actual housing estate to let them know. They send plumber & electrician but neither will do anything due it not being an active leak anymore & needing electrics to dry out respectively. Next day plumber comes back to fix the bath - the pipes underneath hadn't been fitted properly and the electrician comes back to check the electrics and turn it all back on. In the meantime, she's lost a fridge/freezer full of food, had to cancel plans the night it happened and had to take the day off work to let the plumber and electrician in. Naturally she is seeking compensation from the developers.

She's requested the following compensation;

Damages (not including carpet as they have already sorted replacing that, but stuff like food in fridge/freezer, a games console that was on the floor, canvas on the wall etc.) - £470
She then has rounded this up to £1000 to include lack of electricity for 16 hours, no washing facility for 17 hour, cancellation of personal plans, inconvenience and emotional stress.

So in total she is seeking £1000 compensation. After a lot of back and forth - this happened over two weeks ago - the developers have come back and offered £470 full and final settlement.

AIBU to think she could ask for more and they should pay up without question? She was so excited to be owning her first property and moving and they have taken all the joy out of it and caused a very stressful time for her. They are also still using the same plumbing company who made this stupid mistake on houses not yet completed on the site.

Keen to hear what the lovely people of MN think and thank you if you got this far!! It was a long and tedious post I know...

Emotional stress?! That would be for someone who didn't have the "luxury" of the developers sorting it all out for her.

Extra £530 is for emotional stress/inconvenience

Hahaha.

She taking the piss, massively so.

I’m not sure where you or your friend were educated but I’ve never before seen £470 rounded up to £1000!! £500 maybe. The round up to £1000 is cfery at its most laughable!

She is being a CF - over £500 for inconvenience and emotional stress - really !

Rounding up would be £500

She's entitled to be put back in the position she was before and thats what they are doing.

Delay was probably down to the office needing to compose themselves after reading the demands.

If she gets virgin media she'll get clued up about wasted time and emotional stress real quick!

which side are you on OP?

Once again - I think using the wording 'rounding up' was a mistake on my part. Neither of us are stupid and we are fully aware that £470 doesn't round up to £1000, it was just the best way I could think of to explain it.

00100001

I don't know tbh, I thought maybe she'd asked for too much but then someone I spoke to said she should ask for more!

I was more hoping someone had been in a similar situation and could advise what to ask for. Which has been done by people saying the original £470 is more than adequate.

I love your friend's rounding up.

We have had several flooding incidents due to a free standing bath and a careless DD. We claimed for an entire room to be redecorated but managed to cope with the stress.

I'm presuming she has booked a 6 week counselling appointment that she paid for that cost £500 - you know to help her get over this ordeal - it's been so emotional for her!

Extra £530 is for emotional stress/inconvenience

Seriously??????

I think £470 + cost of food ruined and a day’s wage is reasonable, because it covers the losses which weren’t her fault.

I’m always a bit and when “emotional damages” are raised. Money doesn’t fix emotions!

@namechangeyetagain1

Who on earth thought she should ask for more!?!?!

She had a leak. That happens to people all the time. And she even got it fixed the next day as well as them arranging a replacement carpet and happily paying for the other damage. And you think that's stressful?

You know most of the time you've got to find a plumber, pay a big call out charge, pay for parts and wait a few days for them to fit you in and then grapple with insurance to sort damage or just pay it from your own pocket. And some leaks are recurring problems that go on and on.

She had a wrongly connected pipe, fixed straight away. Carpet replaced and paid for. Damage property paid for. Where is the stress?

Can I ask what age you all are? I'm 29 and I'm not that entitled. Are you very young?

£530 for emotional stress

NaomiNagata

We're late 20s-early 30s. Definitely not entitled I promise you. Just a bit disappointed that what was a very happy and proud moment was ruined by this.

Person who suggested she ask for more was actually a lot older. But I think they have a bad experience with new builds/house developers in general so a bit of a chip on their shoulder about these things IYSWIM?

Extra £530 is for emotional stress/inconvenience

Yeah, no. The legal standard is you can sue for enumerable damages, like lost wages, ruined property that must be replaced, etc. "I was really annoyed by this" doesn't clear the bar. Stuff happens.

But buying a new build... The one thing you're always warned about and should know about is snagging. Things will go wrong. It's never been lived in, never been used.. You know to expect problems.

Of course you hope there will be done and usually you're fine, but you know to expect them. And when a problem happens, you sort it out. If it's a huge, ongping problem then you start complaining but this one little thing? And she wants £500 for nothing?

You all sound very naive. Time to act like grown ups.

If she gets virgin media she'll get clued up about wasted time and emotional stress real quick!
Yeah! They don't offer compensation packages for stressed teens when your WiFi's off for 3 days. I know because I asked them. Not only did they refuse the request they laughed!
Maybe I should ask for emotional stress after that.

Meh when we got flooded by Thames water and had to move out for over a year they argues down to the penny the value of the stuff ruined at the time it was ruined (£52.60 was apparently the value of my sofa!) so if they're paying cost price without arguing she should skip to the bloody shops.

They don't compensate you for the inconvince, although tbh having lived in a hotel for 3weeks and then having to move/oversee works/move again / chase up payments for over a year I don't really see cancelling a night out as inconvince

This is hilarious!!! If you'd kept the receipt for a take away for no cooking facilities for the night, fair enough. Even a hotel would be seriously chancing your luck but 530 pounds?!

Bahahaahhaha

Sounds like they've dealt with it very professionally and efficiently.

AIBU to think she could ask for more and they should pay up without question? YES. YES YOU ARE.

She was so excited to be owning her first property and moving and they have taken all the joy out of it Oh the joys, did she think home ownership is a fun filled fairy tale? It's a stressful, money pit debt you're forever bound to welcome to the club...

We once had our basement flooded due to a fault in the waste pipes in the street. There was excrement floating in my basement. DH and I had to have Hep. shots in our bums. It cost thousands in damage to the house, and a huge amount of belongings stored there. Our basement was out of action for months, meaning that all the stuff stored there (above the floodline) sat around our living space for months. For a while we didn't know if the foundations had been affected.

We got nothing for 'emotional' stress.

On Judge Rinder she'd only get the £470 and the cost of the freezer food if she could prove it. Emotional distress never gets compensated on Judge Rinder cases as you can't prove £530 of distress.

Emotional stress?? This is not the US.
The £470 was a fair offer.

She’s massively being a cheeky fucker.

She should be compensated £470 for the damages, no more. If she didn’t want this sort of stress she shouldn’t have bought her own home.

Emotional stress because of one night? Ridiculous.