A Landlord's Worst Nightmare

[Seaview]

Does anyone know about friable asbestos and home fires?

My daughter is tenant in a house. Due to a wiring fault, one kitchen wall burnt down. The Firemen put it out quickly but said it was friable asbestos and had floated through the whole house on the smoke, and they put up a "Contaminated - Do Not Enter" barrier on the front fence.

Thankfully she had contents insurance and the landlord had landlord insurance, so one would think it is easy, but not quite so simple .....

I called an asbestos removal agency and they said it could cost up to $40 k to have the house cleaned. Will landlord insurance cover this?

It will also cost up to 4k for my daughters contents to be cleaned and or removed safely. Is my daughter liable for this removal. Solicitor and tenants advice-line say she is not, as the landlord owns the asbestos and has contaminated her belongings, and the landlord has failed to provide a safe clean place for her to live.(Section 12:1 & 2 of Tenancy Act). He is not charging her rent while it is uninhabitable. I have heard that he should provide alternative accomodation for her too. Is this true ... if so I guess she would continue to pay normal rent? At the moment she and her flatmate are camped at our house. Someone said I should charge them board and claim it back from ? someone?

However, as a landlord myself, I really don't want to make things any harder for the landlord. But I want daughter to be able to receive compensation for value of her belongings (value is about $30k, insurance cover was for $25k, so she is already short, without having to cough up 4k to have belongings removed).

I do not want her to go on TICA register as a bad tenant for leaving contents in house. Tenants Advice line said this should not happen due to exceptional circumstances, and she can leave her stuff there for landlord to remove (poor guy, I really sympathize and hope his insurance covers it, though from experience they are usually looking for ways to screw you).

At least we can let him take the Dept of Housing bond to help towards the cleaning of property, and daughter is probably looking for somewhere else to live. Insurance Ombudsman said it can take up to 30 days to get an assessment done, meanwhile all daughters clothes and worldly belongings are sitting under an invisible layer of asbestos in an abandoned house.

There is also a slight risk that landlord will just hire a normal unsuspecting cleaner and rent a house full of asbestos out to new unsuspecting tenants. I am hoping he would not do this, but the asbestos cleaning company said it does happen. Thankfully the Firemen made a record of the event should we need proof that asbestos is involved.

Needless to say I am about to undertake a thorough review of our landlords insurance policies and smoke detectors etc, and see if asbestos has to be declared, as one or two of our houses may contain it.

Apparently, sometimes it is cheaper to demolish a house than clean asbestos out .... and it was just one little wall!

Any thoughts or advice is welcome.

Cheers
Seaview

 

[NotAllPMsRBAD!]

Generally speaking, the landlord is not responsible for the tenants belongings even in an event such as this. Nor is it the responsibilty of the landlord to cover any shortfall the tenant may have in his/her insurance. That being said it would be prudent to check the landlord insurance policy as it may cover the cost of cleaning property inside the house.. but knowing insurance companies i wouldnt bank it

Asbestos in iteself is not dangerous unless of course it is tampered with. A landlord can still provide a tenant with a safe and clean place to live even if it has asbestos in it. If i was the landlord i would be serving the tenant with an immediate notice to vacate due to the property becoming unsafe/uninhabitable. I would also suggest that by doing this would enable your daughters bond to be released to her straight away also

The tenant should obviously not have to pay rent during this time, and may have an issue for compensation if it can be proved that the landlord did not maintain the property in good order. However if this cannot be proved then there may be no case for compensation. It really depends on your states Tenancy Laws are.

I would seriously doubt that your daughter would end up on any tenancy list as a result of leaving belongings in the property. I am not sure from your post if you are in communication with your daughters landlord, but you might be surprised what agreement can be reached... i am sure they are pretty devasted by the whole situation as well! Unfortunately sometimes there are no winners, and the best solution is to try and minimise the $$ lost.

 

[Seaview]

Just heard the Landlords Insurer initially said the house was inhabitable as only one wall was burnt, and they would not pay for rent loss. But then their assessor refused to go in the building because of the contamination notice so they are taking it a bit more seriously.

We also told the landlord our daughter will probably vacate immediately due to unsafe house/special circumstances, and then the landlord may be able to claim rent loss from his policy for a tenant vacating.

Both a solicitor and the Tenants Advice (Fair Trading) line said our daughter is not liable to remove her contents if contaminated by owners asbestos. She does not expect landlord to make up any shortfall in her contents cover, but she does not have to use any payout to have her items removed.

Her insurer may have some items cleaned and replace other items. The remainder she will leave in the house, and they then become the landlords problem. I should imagine it is like any instance where a tenant vacates and leave items in the house. The Landlord pays for removal and claims it on his insurance. The bond would go back to Dept of Housing, not to our daughter, so we suggested that the Landlord claim it for cleaning.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it is handled. So far the landlord is happy to work together to achieve the best outcome.

 

[zaph]

not quite the same situation, but:

i was a tennant in a house where the bathroom (and adjoining walls) caught on fire while no one was home. i had contents insurance (who knows what insurance the LL had). never really found out what caused it (faulty ceiling fan?), or who was responsible. paid the xs on my policy and got everything of mine that was damaged replaced, new shinny bathroom, all clothes and furnishings dry cleaned. to get rid of the smokey smell they pumped the place full of ozone, which did the trick. that was a good ten years ago. when insuring now i spend a good half hour on the phone asking what it doesn't and does cover - you'd be suprised how many policies don't cover this sort of thing.

a month later we had a full dressed rehearsal at work for a fire (i'm the fire warden). bugger me, the fire brigade they sent were the same ones who put out the house fire!!

 

[RumpledElf]

The bond would go back to Dept of Housing, not to our daughter, so we suggested that the Landlord claim it for cleaning.

If you do that, be aware the department of housing will come chasing you to pay the bond, assuming it is like SA where if you get a bond from the Housing Trust and lose some/all of it on a lease ending, they come after you for the difference.

 

[Pushka]

As NotALLPMsarebad has said, asbestos in itself is ok. However, once it becomes unstable that is where the problems occur. So when your daughter moved in, the property was safe. So I doubt it would be the landlords responsibility to clean her possessions up. I think it might actually be covered under your contents insurance, in a similar way that smoke damage is covered.

Obviously the property is now unsafe; surely logic would say she can move out right now without anythin impacting on her record. But I dont think the landlord is responsible for paying any rent while she is living elsewhere once she has been released from the contract.

If her contents were worth $30k then her Insurance should have been for that amount. The shortfall is not the landlords responsibility; your daughter was under insured.

 

[turk]

As NotALLPMsarebad has said, asbestos in itself is ok. However, once it becomes unstable that is where the problems occur. So when your daughter moved in, the property was safe. So I doubt it would be the landlords responsibility to clean her possessions up. I think it might actually be covered under your contents insurance, in a similar way that smoke damage is covered.

Obviously the property is now unsafe; surely logic would say she can move out right now without anythin impacting on her record. But I dont think the landlord is responsible for paying any rent while she is living elsewhere once she has been released from the contract.

If her contents were worth $30k then her Insurance should have been for that amount. The shortfall is not the landlords responsibility; your daughter was under insured.

If the fire is the landlords responsibility (fault in the wiring) the ensuing costs are then also the landlords responsibility, which one would hope that they
have insurance in place to cover this.

If the tenant had caused the fire they would have to carry the responsibility.

Cheers

Pete

 

[Pushka]

If the fire is the landlords responsibility (fault in the wiring) the ensuing costs are then also the landlords responsibility, which one would hope that they have insurance in place to cover this.

Only if it can be proven the landlord was negligent with the wiring....dodgy installer and all that.

 

[turk]

Only if it can be proven the landlord was negligent with the wiring....dodgy installer and all that.

I would have thought all this meant was that the landlord was still responsible for the tenants loss however the landlord/LL ins.co. could claim against the installer.

Cheers

Pete

 

[TheShuffler]

Landlord doesn't just have to be negligent with dodgy wiring - if they also failed to maintain then they are liable.

 

[the7]

Landlord doesn't just have to be negligent with dodgy wiring - if they also failed to maintain then they are liable.

How would one determine whether they failed to maintain? Would the insurance company simply consider old wiring say older than 40 years failure to maintain?

One wonders how this can happen with proper working circuit breakers or safety switches?