No power or water in our home since Saturday

[rainbowmix]

Hi,

We live in flats and the flat above us had a leak which had damaged the fuse box and therefore our power and water was cut off. We rent our flat from a housing association (rent for this month was taken on the 1st of April). The housing association put us in a hotel and we stayed 3 nights and asked if we could be put into a airbnb (we have a child) which they agreed to cover the cost of as it was cheaper than keeping us in the hotel (we live in a area where rent is above average).

This happened last Saturday. We were told it would be sorted by Tuesday.

Tuesday was extended to this Friday. I've just come of the phone with them and this has been further extended to next Friday (so another week).

I had a fully stocked fridge and freezer (several frozen lamb legs, bulk meat/poultry and seafood) and did a full shopping trip for groceries on the Friday before this happened. Well over £400 in food. This has ALL GONE bad.

Can I claim compensation? We don't have home insurance but do pay a service charge (as you do for flats) so unsure if this includes insurance?

What can I claim compensation (being without power? food loses?) for once all this has been sorted and can we get the rent refunded?

Thanks

This is what household insurance is for. Do you have contents cover?

I do not know how compensation would work, but my first call would be to your home contents insurance provider.

If you have freezer cover included you should be able to claim. They will then do the legwork to recoup from the insurance of the flat above.

Sorry I missed the part where you said you don't have insurance. A service charge would cover the communal services, not insurance.

In that case you will need to get specialist advice. It will depend on who owns the other flat etc who you would need to make a case against.

Also contents insurance is generally pretty cheap, so get that in place ASAP to mitigate over any future loses.

You would only be able to claim if you had insurance which you don’t. I’d think it unlikely you’d get rent back as they are housing you elsewhere in an appropriate place.

Assuming you still had access to the property then you could have gone back and removed the food before it went bad and stored elsewhere.

You can’t have the rent refunded no, they have already put you up elsewhere & are funding repairs.

There will also be no compensation for food etc, if you wanted to be able to protect yourself in that way then you really need your own insurance. It’s not the housing associations fault that this happened and they’ve already been more than reasonable in putting you up elsewhere and arranging repairs to get you back in, anything further you’d need your own cover for.

Did you keep any evidence of this huge quantity of food that has gone bad? Receipts, photos, videos?

Do you have access to the flat or is the food still there now?

Did you buy your freezer with any kind of repair plan, as that may have cover that you could could attempt a claim on? (Although I would have thought not, as the freezer isn't faulty.)

Why do you not have contents insurance?

You may be able to claim against the housing association in certain circumstances - if the leak was due to their agents completing a repair incorrectly is one example.
Possibly if the delay is their fault too - if your food has only gone bad because of the length of time to get an operative on site for example.
But not if the delay is due to a wait for parts.
I used to investigate disrepair/these types of claims for a social housing provider.

No contents insurance? You may be able to claim consequential loss from the buildings insurer but normally freezer contents are on a contents policy.

I don't understand how you can spend £400 on food? That fridge must have been bursting!!
Lesson learnt, get insurance

What caused the leak? Was the flat owner responsible e.g overflowing bath?

That’s so frustrating op. I don’t think you will be able to get rent refunded because the council have arranged alternate accommodation for you and are presumably paying for it too. With regards to compensation , it might be worth a chat with citizens advice- if the tenant in the flat above did cause the problem, could you claim on their insurance ( although that would probably be disputed by the insurer). I think you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that you had well over £400 of perishable/ frozen foods in your fridge /freezer being completely honest. Unless they are industrial sized. Having home insurance is pretty much essential so I’d also look at getting that in place for the future.