No flushing toilet - insurance claim

[Nicketynac]

SIL had a leak from outside her flat which took a long time to be repaired. She has damage to her bathroom and kitchen which is finally being repaired. The builders came in, removed her toilet cistern, bath and bathroom sink. The toilet is usable by filling a bucket in the kitchen and putting it down.
The work was scheduled to take two days however the builders discovered more dampness in the walls and ceiling and said they cannot start repair work.
The insurance company sent out a drying company who said they cannot start the drying process until the wet plaster and floorboards are removed.
Basically she has had no running water in her only bathroom for two weeks with no sign of it being fixed.
Does anyone know her rights? If she was renting then apparently the landlord should restore a flushing toilet within 24hrs but we can't find any answers about a private house.

are the builders engaged by the insurance company, or by the freeholders, or by your SIL? Whoever is paying the builders should be complaining to them.

I don't see any reason why the cistern can't be put back, and the basin as well. If the wall behind the cistern is damp it would need to be spaced off enough to allow air circulation.

p.s.

if the floorboards are going to be taken up, she can't be expected to dance about on the joists.

Have a look in the insurance policy.

I'd expect cover for Alternative Accommodation while the home is unlivable. That will get them moving, because it costs them money. The insurers might have contracted the job out to a claims management company. Hammer the insurers. The letter should be headed "Official Complaint."

If she doesn't have a workable toilet, she may be entitled to alternative accommodation. However, I cant see why the toilet is not reconnected.

Thanks for the replies. We are in Scotland so no freeholder. The insurance policy is buildings cover only and arranged by the factor. The leak was an outside pipe and only affected SIL's flat and an area of the communal garden.
I told her to ask for hotel accommodation but she didn't know if she was overreacting.
There seems to be a big problem with communication between the builders, the drying company (didn't know that was a thing!) and the insurers.
She is going to phone tomorrow to see how long they think things will take, ask if the cistern can be reattached and ask for compensation. She is having to shower at her MIL's. It's ridiculous now.

She says she has a concrete floor so no balancing on joists if they lift the boards!

fairly strange to have floorboards on top of a concrete floor.

Is it? They have already lifted her flooring (Lino I think) so she has bare floorboards just now. Suppose she will find out what's underneath them soon enough!

Ok, so there is a large space in the floorboards where the bath was and she can see concrete underneath. She assumes that is under the floorboards too

possibly it was a decorative finish, like when you put engineered flooring down on a structural floor (it is thicker and fancier than laminate). This is likely to be irrepairably damaged by wet.

or it might be a building technique I am not familiar with. Just for my curiosity, I would be interested to see photos.

These are pics she sent when the builders first came in but the floor is still down. I will ask her to take some more tomorrow

it looks to me like an older building that has been drylined.

pulling off the lining will help the wall to dry. The cistern was probably fixed (lightly) to the drylining. But it should be a trivial job to refix it with a spacing block of scrap timber screwed to the wall to prevent it wobbling.

there's a chance that after the old plaster is hacked off, the wall could be drylined again with a modern insulating board, which should make the room more comfortable in winter. The bathroom ought to have an extractor fan.

the door and other joinery may warp and need to be replaced. Insurers should take this sort of thing in their stride.

PigletJohn the last two places I have lived had cement floors, with floorboards over (in both cases the central heating pipes, installed a few decades afterwards, ran under the floorboards, although I'm fairly sure that the older of the two properties had floorboards all along, but the other had them installed with the heating)