Water coming through from upstairs

[Linnet]

I own my ground floor flat and the flat upstairs is owned by a housing association. If there is a leak from the upstairs bathroom into mine who is responsible for fixing the damage to my bathroom?

should I be claiming on my contents insurance to fix my bathroom ceiling? Or should the housing association be fixing it since they are the owner of the upstairs flat and the source of the leak?

Do you have legal cover on your insurance? I’d phone your insurance and ask for guidance.

Their insurance should cover it as it's their liability

Family member been flooded twice from upstairs. Housing association, said she needs to claim on her own insurance.

The flood was faulty washing machine and bath running over.

A bath running over is completely the upstairs neighbour's fault though, and so they should cover the damage?

I would call my insurer and take their advice.

We’re not sure what has happened. Luckily? it’s dripping through not pouring so I’ve got a bucket under it. Although it must have been dripping all night as when I got up the bath mat was completely sodden.

The bathroom upstairs had a wet room/shower room put in earlier this year. Not sure if their drain is not draining properly and the water has been seeping through into my ceiling, I have a lowered ceiling, which is now bowing slightly, and the water has maybe been accumulating and is now coming through the light fixture. Or maybe there is a pipe somewhere that is leaking under their floor and then through my ceiling.

All I know is that the housing association say I have to claim on my contents insurance and that they’re coming out tomorrow to look at it. They have made no attempt today to find out where the water is coming from so it’s still coming through.

It's unlikely contents insurance will cover the bathroom ceiling as it's part of the property so you would need the buildings insurance, either your own or if the housing association is the freeholder they might arrange buildings insurance which you could then claim under as a leaseholder.

You need to claim via your contents insurance (and yes, they do cover bathroom ceilings). I would ask the housing assoc tenant upstairs to pay your excess.

However, the tenant / housing association should have taken action to stop the leak immediately rather than waiting. Have they turned their water off?? That's assuming they're at fault rather than it being a pipe that runs between both flats (in which case, you're looking at building insurance claim).

That’s interesting as our buildings insurance is through the housing association, they take out a block buildings insurance so we have no choice who we go with, it has to go through them.

The guy on the phone just kept saying you have to claim on your own insurance, that’s what I’ve been told.

Also about ten years ago a pipe leaked from upstairs through our living room ceiling and the housing association fixed all that damage, when I pointed this out to him he said that they shouldn’t have done that.

Just to add, I had almost an identical problem a few months ago (right down to the water coming through the light fitting in my bathroom). I texted the owner of upstairs (it was midnight on a Fri) and she replied at 5am (and turned her water off) and she arranged a plumber who arrived at 10am on Sat. It took several days to fix it (thought it was fixed on Sat but it started again on Sun).

Please be careful. There will be a LOT of water if your ceiling is bowing and it's coming through your light fitting. Make sure you turn your bathroom lights off at the fusebox - you can't turn them back on again until it's fixed and your ceiling has dried out (so you're looking at 3-4 days minimum). Check that your ceiling isn't hot (i.e. that the water in your light fitting doesn't cause an electrical fire if the power is still on).

The housing association should be treating this as an emergency given the water is in your electrics. This is not something to mess about with!

No, they haven’t turned off the water. The plumber just came out looked at their bathroom, where there is nothing to see, came and looked at ours and said he’d speak to his supervisor. the supervisor is the one who phoned me, I was at work.

I’m not sure I could ask the tenant to pay the excess if I have to claim, they are very elderly and on a tight budget and if the leak is from shoddy workmanship surely the housing association should be held responsible.

The building as a whole should be insured; it will be the freeholder's responsibility under the terms of your lease and you will be paying for this via your service charge or separate insurance charge from your freeholder. You can claim under the block policy, provided that the cost of the repair work to the damage to your flat is more than the excess for the insurance.

Whoever is managing the block may recharge the flat causing the leak for the excess, but it depends on how they manage it - sometimes they'll ask you to approach them separately as technically they're not involved in a water issue between two demised spaces.

In the first instance you need to knock upstairs and find out what's causing the leak and ask them to try to resolve it.

This is how every escape of water between flats has been dealt with in my 15 years of managing freehold blocks.

The person on the phone is wrong, contents insurance won't cover it. Escape of water is one of the fundamental things covered by buildings insurance! Ask them for a copy of it, you've got a right to see it (and claim off it) if you're contributing to it.

I got my husband to switch off the lights at the fuse box this morning.

I just can’t get over how uninterested the housing association are, they just keep saying oh you’re a private flat we can’t do anything for you, but they have before which is what’s confusing me.

Plus I’m really annoyed about the fact that they haven’t even bothered to find out where this water is coming from.

If you have the details for the building insurance I would call them direct, some housing associations have the details on their websites

Contents will cover the work to redecorate the OP's ceiling and new light fittings etc. However, if it's a major leak causing significant damage from a leaking communal pipe (rather than someone leaving a tap running) then building insurance will be more appropriate. However, building insurance excesses can be high - in my building, the excess for water leaks is currently £1,000.

https://www.lease-advice.org/faq/water-has-leaked-into-my-flat-from-the-flat-above-and-caused-damage-to-my-property-what-can-i-do/

@Linnet who's the freeholder? The Housing Assoc? I'd be screaming blue murder as their lack of action means your flat is being damaged. If you have legal cover on your contents insurance, I'd get some advice from them as I'm pretty sure that legally the HA/tenant can be held responsible for paying for the damage because they're making no attempt to stop it or fix it.

You're conflating two things here.

If the leak comes from a pipe or area which serves more than one property (a riser pipe, or roof for example), then it would be for the service charge to repair the issue and pay for the excess.

If the source of the leak is demised (I.e someone's flat) then it would be the leaseholder's responsibility to repair the leak and pay the excess.

If the damage is structural, which includes fixtures, fittings and internal wall coverings, it is covered under the buildings insurance.

If it's anything which would fly around if you could pick the flat up and shake it, it's contents.

Completely agree with this. They're doing nothing to mitigate either your or the insurer's losses.

If the damage is structural, which includes fixtures, fittings and internal wall coverings, it is covered under the buildings insurance.

Well that hasn't been the case in 15 years of managing a building with 110 flats -fixtures, fittings and internal wall covering all covered by contents insurance rather than building insurance.

Um, possibly the housing association? I’m in Scotland we don’t really have leaseholder/freeholder here. The street is a mixed HA flats and owned. For buildings insurance we have to take the buildings insurance that they give us. We also pay factoring fees and grounds maintenance. It’s possible the guy on the phone meant buildings insurance but he was going by what the housing side had told him, he’s the property/maintenance guy.

I’m not happy that they’ve made no attempt to find the source of the water and I will be telling them this tomorrow morning when they come to see my bathroom. I think they’re dragging their feet because they’re going to have to rip up the entire floor upstairs, and possibly take off the wet wall to get to pipe work to find out where the water is coming from and it only got put in 5 months ago.

I've got no interest in getting into an argument or a pissing match about this, but a very simple google about the difference between buildings and contents insurance will show that what I've said above is the case and has also been my experience in the many insurance claims I've overseen during my career.

Nonetheless, the privately held contents insurance might have legal cover and the OP may benefit from that if the HA isn't undertaking their responsibilities.

I’ve looked out my buildings insurance info and under the premises it mentions buildings including fixtures and fittings, landlords contents, interior decorations, contents of common parts…loads more then mentions gates, fences, gas and water mains, cables and wires, piping

It also says the excess for escape of water Is £350. That’s is last years insurance, this years insurance hasn’t come through the post yet. 🙈

It's the 'interior decorations' bit you're interested in - that's what it covers for repair.

I'd be surprised if a single bathroom ceiling comes to more than £350 though, unless it does collapse in which case it definitely will.

If it starts to bow significantly, use a pencil to poke it at its lowest point (put a bucket underneath!) because this will allow the water out, relieve the pressure and hopefully stop it from coming down.

Thank you all for your advice last night. The guys from the HA came out this morning and had a look through the hole in the ceiling where the light has fallen through and it was all very wet! We have a lowered false ceiling and part of the original ceiling has basically collapsed due to it all being wet and the joists were wet too.

So there was definitely water seeping from somewhere upstairs and they suspected the shower and were all set to rip up the floor and find the leak and then redo the floor. However on further investigation upstairs they discovered that it was actually the toilet that was leaking as they hadn’t installed the waste connection pipe correctly. So for the past 5 months every time someone flushes the loo some water trickles through and into my bathroom 🤢. Not a nice thought! The leak has now been fixed and I have contacted my buildings insurance, the more senior guy from the HA confirmed that it was buildings to contact not my contents insurance which the other guy had been insisting, to tell them and I’m waiting to hear back.

I’ve also had a peek through the hole with a torch and it looks a horrible mess in there so I have a feeling it’s not going to be great when they take down the ceiling to see exactly how bad it is.

So, everything is in hand and thanks again for your help