Legal

We own an apartment in PuertoAlto in Estepona,when we arrived for a break in April it had been badly flooded from the above property we had to return home to England  as my wife was having cancer treatment our friends contacted us to say the above owner had flooded ourapartment again inJuly, to date he has caused 5000pounds worth of damage,his insurance agent admitted liabiliity to the community office BUT this owner is  is refusing to settle with us,my wife did law before she retired and has said he is liable but she is not well enough to handle this at the moment,she has said we need to place an embargo on his apartment, can anyone help us please, we are both mid 70's  

Hello,

I am not an expert in Spanish insurance law but if it is broadly the same as the UK and on the assumption you have your own property insured ( ie contents and fittings insurance which is separate from buildings insurance maintained by the management entity), isn't it a case of you contacting your own  insurer to make a claim and  for your insurer to deal with the claim and then pursue your neighbour to recover the loss?

Yes we have buildings insurance via ourcommunity fees,we did no tinsure the contents as we are on the ground floor it is not LAW that everyone should have contents insurance but if a neighbouring property has damaged your property they must pay not the innocent offected   The owners insurer has admitted liability the water came from the neighbours water pipe into our apartmen, the insurer addresed the damage of the offending neighbour,apartment, one of the biggest problems is the manner in which this owner has been treating my wife who has been really ill and we told him this,we need a lawyer with good litigation knowledge who is not affraid of insurance companies,does anyone know one please

Hello 

Thank you so much for your reply, it is not law in UK and Spain to have insurance on a property unless you have a mortgage, our buildings are covered by the community, as said we did not insure the contents,  if there was a fire that would be buildings insurance, if it was burgled and our furniture stolen it would not be insured, if it is flooded by a neighbour he must pay either via his insurance or from his pocket, we are on the groundf floor and we cannot flood another property, sadly the owner of the offending apartment has insurlted my wife significantly and is a true misogynist.  he has behaved really badly towards her, I explained she was in hospital having cancer treatment and he continued with his insulting remarks to our personal emails.   

Kind regards

Many years ago I had water damage to the fabric of our apartment caused by a water leak from the apartment above... the occupant of the apartment above.  I'm sure our repairs were paid for by our community buildings insurance company... I don't see how the apartment owner above you can affect this?  You are making a claim on the community building insurance? I would contact your property community management company and seek their advice to deal with a claim on the policy they no doubt arranged?

Thank you so much for your reply it is appreciated, I am going to the community office this week as we suspect the claim ought to go through them, there is something not right here, we learned last week the offending owner above is on the committee, thus I have requested full details of all committee members!

Kind regards

We had a leak from our apartment into downstairs. We did the responsible thing and asked our insurers to contact our neighbours to restore any damage caused. It happened twice as they didn't do the job correctly first time. No major damage to the neighbours, but our apartment floor was up for 6 weeks as they started the work just before August!

I don't know the legal position in Spain - the standards are so low that I doubt that they know themselves. In the UK  the position has been established over many years and there is a common law principle.  This still causes debate as in some instances it can appear counter intuitive. 

Of course the party identified in the lease should insure the entire fabric of the building in the joint names of the various interested parties.  On virtually every occasion an insured claim should be dealt with by the insurer.  Invariably there will be a minimum of a £250 excess depending on the cause of loss.  The excess should be allocated evenly amongst the flats as an addition to the Service Charge.

The bottom line is that unless there is very clear gross negligence the repairs are paid for by the Buildings Combined insurance. 

The idea that "someone" or "some flat" has to be responsible is rarely recognised by the UK courts.  Which in practical terms makes a lot of sense.  When water comes pouring through your ceiling you invariably don't know where it's from - particularly in a large building.  It may be from many floors up, or the water can often travel horizontally.  Or the leak may be from a communal supply pipe buried in the wall, or serving multiple properties.

It was established many years ago that living in a flat such incidents should be shared to avoid constant legal hassles between neighbours, as, in effect a pragmatic acceptance of living in a flat.

This system works well in the UK, the only problem I've encountered is that often either the freeholder or Managing Agent has little experience, or can make a profit out of telling porkies and not following the law of the land.  They are unregulated currently - that is likely to change shortly.