UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi,
First time on here, appreciate any advice. I was phoned by my letting agent this morning to be informed that the down stairs is flooded, with damage to the floor, electrics and furniture. The cause was a sheered pipe connected to the washing machine. Apparently the damage is so servers because the tenant couldn't find the stopcock.

When I showed the letting agents round my property, they noted the locations of the stopcock, gas meters etc. My understanding i when they hand the property over, they also show these things to the tenants.

My main concern is sorting out my tenants as quickly as possible, but I'm not sure who is at fault here. Clearly accidents happen, so some of the damage I'm happy to sort out. But the extensive damage caused by not knowing the location of the stopcock, I think that's the responsibility of the letting agent.

Has anyone had a similar issue? Got any advice?

James

I reckon you're just going to have to suck it up (literally!) Nobody's going to have a clear recollection of who did or didn't or should or shouldn't have told what to whom.

Claim on your insurance if you reckon it's worth it.

They've only been in there 1 month, so I'm not sure I agree. But thanks for your comment

Well, if you can clearly remember the agent specifically promising to show all tenants the location of the stop-cock and your tenants can clearly remember not being told, then you might argue some of the blame lies with the agent. Having an understanding or a feeling that it's something the agent ought to do, or a recollection that they said something along those lines just won't cut it.

Not all tenants are inept, and not all agents are lazy scrotes who won't lift one finger more than they've promised to in writing. However, it's better to start with the assumption that both are true.

Washing machine pipes... the ones that go into the washing machine (usually just the one these days as they're nearly all cold-fill?) have isolation valves on them, don't they? I think it's going to be very, very hard to get someone other than you (or your Insurance) to accept responsibility... the Agent will have standard get-outs and will probably flatly refuse to contemplate responsibility, saying you indemnified them from things like this by signing-up to their terms of business... and the Tenant will say they were never Checked-In properly. The potential best route is to hand it to your Insurance Company... if they felt it was necessary to do anything, they would... otherwise they'd just pay-out, or refuse, I'd presume.