Hey,
A good friend of mine owns the flat.
She had insurance but didn't have accidental damage insurance. When offered it, she was led to believe that it was simply for if she knocked her tv off the table or something and she was willing to take the risks with that kind of thing.
But as it turns out, causing damage by taking out supporting walls without a building warrant is also called "an accident" and so she wasn't covered.
Either way, the two flats above were insured and their insurance companies weren't much help. In fact, they insisted that it was totally reasonable for the guys who did the damage to do the repair. So they have done repairs but not to the total satisfaction of the owners.
It's very hard to force them to do anything. Yes, we'd like compensation but they just say "no".
For a long time they were only willing to fix the cracks in the walls, and replaster. It's taken the three years to get them to be willing to fix the windows - and even then, as I said, they're just sticking slips of wood in. (And as we have lovely, olden-days type stripped wood round the windows, that's not very good).
One of the problems is that there was previous subsidence on the buildings - but there's been none for as long as anyone can remember. The woman upstairs having lived there for forty or fifty years.
So the builders keep arguing that all the damage was there in the first place (but they'll fix the cracks cos they're lovely...) and that we're just after betterment.
Unfortunatley, we have few photos of the place from before the work because they just came in, removed walls and started problems before any of us were aware of anything.
...
So... if you have any advice or ideas of things we may not have tried, you're invited to help or offer advice.
Thanks.
