To say upstairs neighbour should pay?

[Leakingtoilet]

Looking for advice for anyone with knowledge about the law here. Daughter lives in a flat and 2 days ago the upstairs neighbours toilet flooded and came through the ceiling. Vague reason given was too much paper blocked the toilet and caused it to overflow. They have no lights because of this and need an emergency electrician due to fire risk.

Upstairs neighbour is refusing to pay and says they are not insured. Downstairs neighbour has told daughter that she shouldn't pay as she won't be able to get the money back.

Upstairs neighbour should definitely be paying imo but is there anything daughter and her partner can do to make neighbour pay?

Both flats are owned

AIBU to say neighbour should pay?

Just to add I have always rented so not in best position to advise her on this.

Surely a flooded toilet from too much paper is not a major leak. More a kind of minor cosmetic leak.

Unless I am fundamentally misunderstanding something about this toilet.

Sorry I should have been clearer about why I wrote that.

Are the lights not working? Or are they off as a safety measure?

Exactly this! One the main reasons why I have insurance, so I don't have to deal with trying to get blood out of a stone.

This thread made me double check my buildings and contents insurance last night

Fortunately I'm fully covered in all directions

I didn't realise a few years ago my buildings insurance didn't automatically renew having changed providers so I was without building and contents insurance for 4 years !!!

This happened to us recently. We are downstairs. The neighbour has paid.

I think you miss the point in her insurance. They will usually seek reimbursement from the person at fault. So she can leave them deal with it.

I'd also said that in my experience, home insurance isn't like car insurance, you don't get unduly punished for claiming. I've had to claim twice for pretty high value claims (£40,000 and £12,000), but if didn't massive affect my premiums other than for the first one, put my excess up the next year for water damage and the second i had to change a door (for security) before I used the company again.

Something similar happened to me. The building insurance that covered the whole block of (leasehold) flats sorted it. No need to get into confrontations with neighbours as if leasehold flats the neighbour will be covered by the same insurance policy as your daughter.

In a block of flats generally the building will be insured by the freeholder and it is the responsibility of each flat owner to have contents insurance.

Your daughter needs to assess the damage and then talk to the management company who can help with an insurance claim on the building insurance if there is any structural damage. For any contents, she needs to claim off her own insurance.

One thing to be aware of is the excess for block building insurance can be high. It is £1000 for our block.

If the owner above was negligent then often leases have clauses that the freeholder can use to pursue them for money to repair damage, but I suspect that is rare and only in cases of significant damage.

When we had a flood in to our flat, caused by a pipe suddenly and unexpectedly shearing off the toilet in the bathroom above, we were able to resolve it amicably with our upstairs neighbour. She paid for an electrican to check our wiring and make it safe and then we paid to repair the ceiling and replace the bathroom light (which came to around £400 but we were booked in for a bathroom refurb anyway so just rolled it in to the budget)