Home Loss Assessor - did you use one?

Quote -How is it not the block insurance as its from a flat roof of another apartment above us?? - Unquote

scaryeire - just a thought in relation to the above. Was the flat roof part of the original construction or something the other apartment added themselves? If its the latter and a structural engineer can proof there was no proper run off of water from the roof and water leaked into your floorboards (?), then the apartment (owner of the flat roof) may be responsible for the damage. I am not a builder or engineer and I may have misunderstood the relationship of the flat roof in relation to your bathroom floor. If you have insurance, I expect this would be covered. I would be worried about a bathroom resting on rotting joists! Hope you get resolution of the problem from your insurers soon.

polarbear said:

Quote -How is it not the block insurance as its from a flat roof of another apartment above us?? - Unquote

scaryeire - just a thought in relation to the above. Was the flat roof part of the original construction or something the other apartment added themselves? If its the latter and a structural engineer can proof there was no proper run off of water from the roof and water leaked into your floorboards (?), then the apartment (owner of the flat roof) may be responsible for the damage. I am not a builder or engineer and I may have misunderstood the relationship of the flat roof in relation to your bathroom floor. If you have insurance, I expect this would be covered. I would be worried about a bathroom resting on rotting joists! Hope you get resolution of the problem from your insurers soon.

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I worked as a loss adjuster (on behalf of insurance companies) for a number of years. Most policies have a clause saying that an incident has to be reported in a reasonable time frame or 6 months. The fact this happened 4.5 years ago is going to act against you. Also a builder has attempted to repair these works already so a loss adjuster will not be able to see the damage as it was post the incident. Sorry if not following what you said above, did you report the incident to any insurance company when it occurred initially?

Hi Ryanline79 and Polarbear,

We couldn't report this incident as we never knew this had happened, when the apartment flooded 4.5 years ago, it came through our kitchen and hallway ceiling from an unoccupied and unsold apartment above, the flat roof of that apartment. When the damage was caused the builders were on site and came in and fixed the apartment ceilings and walls, the problem is (this is not 100% confirmed that this is the root of the problem but seems to be) water must have gotten down below the floorboards to underneath, so the problem may have happened 4.5 years ago but we didn't know until now that water got beneath our floor (how could we know).

So the wooden joists/structure in that part of the hallway are rotten and starting to dip, that's how we noticed in the last couple of weeks that a section of the floor was dipping, so we got someone to remove the floorboards to look below and have only noticed this issue now, and guessing that it must of been from the original flooding.

So this never once emanated or was caused from inside the apartment or anything we did.

The developer has gone bust, Managemnt company initially said that's from original flooding and can't be covered, that was before we took up the boards and either way this has to be a block issue as its outside of our apartment beneath us and caused never by us.

What do you think? We are going back to the management company now to see what they say next week I suppose. Should we get a cost of the repairs first then approach mngt co? Or just approach them again first?

IMO, you need to WRITE to the Management company and copy all correspondence to your solicitor. Find an independent Loss Adjuster, who should get you all monies to have your property properly repaired. There is no easy way to do this, but you need to act fast with steel toe caps on to deal with the MC.

Thanks Mercman I will do that, really stressful paying at the top end for an apartment at the very height of the boom, not even worth a third of what was paid, but the least you want is a safe/sound structure, that's all were looking for.

Hopefully we can get a proper resolution to this problem, we have had nothing but trouble with the apartment, by no means the only ones affected in ireland with same or worse issues than us, just very very frustrating.

Thanks for all the replies I will update as I go, thanks.

Scary, welcome to my world. I'm in a somewhat similar situation which has been well covered on AAM. It is very frustrating but keep your pecker up and don't let the MC look down on you.

Thanks mercman I certainly won't be letting them off lightly that's for sure! Thanks for the advice

mercman said:

IMO, you need to WRITE to the Management company and copy all correspondence to your solicitor. Find an independent Loss Adjuster, who should get you all monies to have your property properly repaired. There is no easy way to do this, but you need to act fast with steel toe caps on to deal with the MC.

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As mercman says there is no easy way out of this. If the Management Company owns the joists underneath the floor then it is up to them to make a claim against their own insurance policy. You will have to push them to do this. However as I said before the length of time involved will be an issue. You will need to get all the correspondence you can together relating to time-lines of the previous work done and include this as part of your letter to the management company.

Just to note the term adjuster applies to persons that work on behalf of the insurance company and it is a loss assessor you may require to help you.

It doesn't really matter where the water came from, it is what damage it has done to your / the management companies property that is all that matters. For example if your neighbour's house went on fire and you suffered smoke damage as a result, you will not be able to claim against your neighbour for this damage. You will have to claim against your own policy.

Hope that is of some help.

Thanks for the replies so far.

So to update, management company responded today to say by the end of the week they are going to put an insurance claim in for us.

He said the company will then contact us to get full information and a cost of remedial works from us that we have asked a company to assess and provide.

Following that they may pay for works. Or:

Send out a loss adjuster, and then Pay after that or:

Not pay for the claim.

Any thoughts on the update or advice? Thanks.

scaryeire said:

Thanks for the replies so far.

So to update, management company responded today to say by the end of the week they are going to put an insurance claim in for us.

He said the company will then contact us to get full information and a cost of remedial works from us that we have asked a company to assess and provide.

Following that they may pay for works. Or:

Send out a loss adjuster, and then Pay after that or:

Not pay for the claim.

Any thoughts on the update or advice? Thanks.

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Sounds like a good start - best case scenario is that the management company pay / fix the damage for you and this has been presented as an option.

Just keep on to them now as I'm sure they will probably drag their heels a bit.

Thanks Ryanline 79, we will and as you say that's the best case scenario for us I will keep you all updated. Thanks again for everyone's comments.

Just an update, mngt co have put in the claim and are bring helpful. They said they are sending out a contractor to review and price accordingly.

My question is do we get someone to review/price works as well? Thanks.