Insurance

[pawel]

own a flat in a converted house and took out insurance for the building as part of my mortgage, share of freehold, bought it a month ago.

The lessee who owns the flat above now wants me to pay for some storm damage to his flat that happened before i owned. as im the new owner am i responsible to pay for his repair or should he contact old owners? because he said he knew of the problem for a two months.

there also seems to be two insurance policies in place, one for the previous owner, he paid half and the one in my name which he has not paid yet.will my new insurance supercede the old one? if it supercedes will i haveto reimburse him for the months left on his old policy or will he chase the old owner?

the lessee said he wants to claim off my policy even though the damage happened before I took the policy out and bought the place? is this fraud?
he he is entitled to claim off my insurance will i have to pay half of his excess?? this is an ongoing problem he has not dealt with maybe because the old owner refused

any ideas greatly appreciated!

[ram]

First, as you know, you are the freeholder and are responsible,
via the lease, to maintain the building and the money for this comes
from all the flat owners.

But i use the following to make my point.
You buy a car and after a year you fnd the car was damaged
underneath by the previous owner, and needs fixing as it will
fail it's M.O.T. when due.
You cannot go to the previous owner to fix a car that he no longer
has any obligation to fix.

You are the freeholder and have to maintain the building.
If the insurance will cover storm damage, then they fix.
If there is an excess to pay, this comes out of the service charge
/ current bank balance. ( excess paid by all leaseholders )

If you are the freeholder, YOU claim on your insurance policy.

If the storm damage occured when theother policy was in force,
and stil in force, you claim off that.
Often if someone cancels aninsurance policy, there may be no
refund.
All this should have been sorted out when buying the freehold.
(insurance overlaps )
There is NO fraud here.
The building has suffered storm damage, it has to be fixed, you
are the freeholder and are legaly obliged to fix it.

The only problem i see is if storm damaged occured before your
insurance was in effect, then they wont pay out.
If the previous insurance policy is still running, you see IF you
can claim on that ( may have to be the person whose signature
is on the insurance policy / the person named that has to claim.

Ref "am i responsible to pay for his repair"

It is not "his" repair, it's maintaining the building / repairing a
fault that is probably now an emergency, so don't hang around
or the top flat can sue you for failing to maintain the building,
and compensation for damage to personal property.

If the insurance wont pay out, then the cost of repairs is divided
between the number of flats.

Best of luck.

R.a.M.