BUILDINGS INSURANCE : SUBSIDENCE CLAIM

[wbmkk]

My elderly father-in-law is having some major repairs to his boundary wall and garage wall carried out, the work having just started this week, after an approximate two year wait, while insurance companies argued and waited for land clearance.

Basically the wall was collapsing due to shrubbery on the other side sucking moisture from the soil, causing the foundation to tilt. This took quite a while to finally prove; then delays took place while the third party cleared the land of the shrubs etc

My father-in-law had to pay £1000 excess on his building insurance policy as it was a subsidence claim. The total job is approx £11,000

If the third party, who owns all the land over his wall is guilty of:: firstly letting shrubs and trees grow and secondly leaving them untouched over many years to get 'out of hand' then would it be fair to get them to pay the £1000 excess

It may not be a simple exercise, but is it worth a try.

My father-in-law had to take out a loan to pay for this excess. He is 82

Any advice would be appreciated

Many thanks !

 

[^woody^]

Generally, owners of land are responsible for the damage caused by vegetation growing on their land. But as this is just a case of vegetation growing and taking water, then it will be difficult for you to prove a valid claim

If your insurers could apportion blame, then they would have pursued damages from the neighbour. As they are not, then I would be surprised if you got more success if you sued.

There is a firm of loss adjusters, Cunningham Lindsey, who do a lot of work for insurers in this area of claims. Most of it is just spurious, and they allege all sorts of nonsnese to try and get people to pay for damages caused by trees and vegetation. But I wonder if you or your insurers could approach them and see if they could take this claim on?

Why didn't you get the builders to bung the excess on top of the quote - like everyone else does

 

[noseall]

what is "fair" and what is "legal" are opposing pages from the book of life.

greed has no conscience i'm afraid.

building a wall next to a shrubbery is considered foolish in the "unfair" book of life.

we are now living in a world where things that grow out of the ground are of a far greater importance than you or i.

 

[Shytalkz]

Actually Woodster, CL project manage the vast majority of their claims, so there would be no opportunity of "adjusting" the prices to include the policy excess. In their previous guise, there was a v big broohaha over jollies given to adjusters by panel contractors to such places as Hong Kong Sevens etc, so they are very tight these days on auditing their handling of claims.

I'm surprised that, if the loss adjuster's investigation (they did one, right....?) lays the blame on the neighbour, that they haven't informed the neighbour of a need to inform their own insurer of a 3P claim against them. I would go back to the loss adjusters and ask them the question as to why not and, in the light of having failed to do so, confirming that insurers will waive the excess. If you get no joy from them, go directly to insurers and, if they are still refusing to waive it, go to the Ombudsman. It's a tedious process, but one worth being tenacious about.

 

[gavos]

I work in this field. There are legal precedents which have been set down following various legal cases on such matters. In essence, a number of criteria must be met in order to pursue a successful recovery from a third party.

The main test is to prove beyond doubt that the neighbour's vegetation is the primary cause of damage to the wall. The neighbour would inevitably argue that the design or construction of the wall was deficient in some way. Hopefully your engineer/adjuster would have carried out the necessary investigations at the outset.

Following this you must be able to show that the neighbour has acted negligently. To do this you must show that the neighbour had some expertise or knowledge to know that the vegetation could/would cause damage to the wall and that the occurrence of damage was therefore reasonably foreseeable by them. The average person in the street is generally not considered to have this requisite knowledge. If your neighbour is a surveyor or structural engineer then that would be different. Generally it's easier to obtain a recovery of costs if the neighbouring property is owned by a commercial organisation, housing association or local authority etc. as the are deemed to have (or employ) the relevant expertise. Be advised that any recovery action is a long drawn out process as no one is quick to put their hand in their pocket.

Where the neighbour is an old grey-haired granny, there is generally no prospect of obtaining a recovery on the first occasion that damage occurs, so long as they co-operate in mitigating the cause of damage by removing the vegetation. However, if they fail to remove the vegetation and then further damaged occurs again in the future then they can then be held liable for the full cost of any damage caused as they have lost the defense of non-foreseeability.

If the neighbour is a private individual then their liability in this regard is usually covered by their own CONTENTS policy and they should be pressed to notify their insurers (but you can't force them). The neighbour's insurers are usually very defensive but where your case is strong, the neighbour's insurers will usually help out and press the neighbour to remove the vegetation and thus try and limit their exposure to a claim for damages.

These days insurance companies are very hot on getting their money back from third parties where they can so i'm sure this avenue will have been considered. speak to your loss adjuster/insurer in this regard.

 

[Culver]

This reciprocity agreement means that in many cases one can apply for a license in another state without having to pass that state's examination or pre-licensing education requirements. Generally, Public insurance adjuster
only work with insurance claims related to property damages and the business losses that they trigger such as business income,








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