Tenant issue

[Rosie8880]

Hi.

Have been renting to a tenant for 2 years and also extended AST for another year ending in summer next year. All good and fine, no hassle. This week two flats below were impacted by water emanating from my flat. The lower of the two has water marks/ damage to one ceiling, the flat below water has leaked to about 3 rooms - ceilings, carpets. plumbers have reported that it’s inconclusive and would need to do further investigations but say likely cause of a bath overflow. Tenant is worried as says this did not happen and is worried about further leaks. My flat is unscathed which I find strange if thankful, considering volume of water thought to have escaped. I will face claims from both flats which will be covered by insurance.

interested to hear what others would do as next steps.

How could your property not be affected by a bath overflowing for such a prolonged period, that a flat TWO floors below yours was damaged?

Doesn't make any sense.

If the leak was from your property, and occurred within the past few days, then the walls, floor boards/joists/concrete will still be wet. Pull up your flooring and investigate.

Could damage come from leaking water pipes or joints below your floorboards. Seems necessary to investigate by looking under your floorboards and take it from there. Call your insurance company too. They will send out someone to investigate and arrange repairs

If the bath has not over flowed then it's likely to be a leak under the bath.

This is not a tenant issue. This is an issue with your pipes.

Your insurance should cover you for finding as well as fixing the leak. This is why escape if water excess tends to be higher.

Are there flats either side? Water can travel, so it could have made its way along as well as down?

That's a very good point

Plumbers say no damage isn’t unusual apprantly - water travels downwards with anything below impacted. The bath floor under the bath when plumbers opened was unimpaired which they also said was not unusual.

The immediate next step would be to get the plumber(s) back to investigate the cause of the leak. Surely that’s obvious?

Agree with this likely flooring below the bath has been affected of the overflow is at fault. Any sealant or tiles broken/missing? Otherwise suspect it might be heating or water pipes running under the floor. Have you contacted your insurer?

My kids once overflowed the bath, the floorboards were ruined. It doesnt sound like the bath overflowed in this case especially with the damage to the other flats? Id believe your tenant.

Plumbers have said it’s likely to be bath overflow - apprantly flat below plumber had said something about no burst water pipes. Should say the water escape was a one off - didn’t happen again / hasn’t happened again.

We once had a similar issue to this, although it was our own downstairs we flooded rather than someone else's flat. It turns out that the pipe around the bath plughole had slipped so, while it appeared the bath was draining normally, some of it was going out via the pipes and the rest was going into the floorspace and then down through the ceiling.

You need to get a plumber out to investigate.

This is true. My flat was on the receiving end of a monster leak from the flat above due to the sealing around their bath being insufficient. They were oblivious but the water ingress built up and up until a small leaking spot appeared in my ceiling. When I removed my ceiling light, water came pouring through (so obviously couldn’t use any electrics for days and days). It then turned out that it also affected the flat below mine too. The water leak was building up between the lower floors/ceilings for ages and finally came bursting through into our two lower flats. The top floor flat causing all this was unaware. The plumbers finally identified the source and fixed it, and we had to wait for everything to dry out for ages before they could repair our two lower flats. The upstairs owner paid for everything but even now, when I hear their bath running it makes me very nervous indeed.

Not impared or not wet?

If there was a leak it will be wet.

I think you need a new plumber

Christ! I’m sorry to hear that. plumbers that came out saw no selant issues etc in flat. How long did your flat take to dry out and be repaired? How long did the insurance claim process take too? And if was recent, how much was excess on insurance // how much weee the overall repairs out of interest.

Not wet nor impaired…

I had similar happen in a previous flat. Plumber initially couldn’t find any reason for it but came out the next day and investigated more and turned out the bath pipes were installed incorrectly and the leak had built up over time.

In my house i had a leak and the insurance paid to trace the leak. To trace the leak they had to rip out the shower cubicle as it was under there. So i paid the excess of a few hundred and got a nice new shower. All sorted quite quickly

Regardless of the cause why are you describing it as a tenant issue? Accidents happen. If the tenants have been ok so far I wouldn't be looking to apportion blame, I would just concentrate on making sure you don't have leaky pipes. Also is the bath overflow correctly plumbed? Where does it overflow to?

Hang on a minute, the plumber’s saying it’s “not unusual” for a floor to remain both undamaged and dry after a bath overflowing onto/through it?? Sounds extremely unusual to me.

Good point - I have had a lot of information from very upset neighbours (which is very understandable) who feel tenant is to blame - with two sets of plumbers saying it was a bath overflow it’s hard to assess with tenant sharing wasn’t this. This could be grounds for eviction based on breach of AST. I’m indemnified against any rise in premiums, excess etc which if tenant is at fault they will need to pay.

Two sets of plumbers say that. Apprantly due to gravity water escape goes down. I’m no expert but found that strange too!

Insurance may not pay to identify and put right the leak itself, just the consequential damage. There should be some evidence of residual damp, staining damp or swollen wood of the leak was recent. Has tenant admitted to taking a deep bath or perhaps overflowing it?

Apparently the plumbers came out twice. Once for 5 mins (!) and then again - they also visited the flats in lower floors and spoke to occupants too.

Hi, plumbers said area under bath was bone dry, water marks under bath were standard from use. Tenant says it was not an overflow - plumbers say cause inconclusive but “likely” caused by overflow bath event.

Water will trickle along a pipe or beam then find the nearest , lowest weak spot to pass through . If they take up the flooring surely the staining will match the ceiling below? Sounds as if the plumbers cba. Is the overflow and bath plug surround properly sealed(ours wasn’t , clearly no previous occupant took deep baths).