Leaky pipes, quick fix, in steps a lawyer

Here apartments are owned separately and come with no extra amenities contrary to practice in the USA. Those extras, pool, laundry, gardens etc, can be costly and I am happy paying very minimal utility and building maintenance fees. It's a small 10 unit building.

Anyway, late one hot June evening, I went into the kitchen to get a drink and found myself under a shower of water dripping, leaking through the ceiling tiles in my kitchen.

I ran upstairs to ring the neighbor, who is a renter and expected him to tell the owner get the leaky pipes fixed. Time passed, summer came and went. My insurance company sent 3 letters of reclamation, unanswered. The only oral response I got was that the leaky pipes would be checked when the renter moved out and in the meantime, the present renter would refrain from using hot water.

Quick fix.

The absent landlord has no home insurance on that rental property. How does anyone have the nerve to rent out property with no insurance on it? A rhetorical no brainer. By now my insurance company has handed the case to their legal department to take it to court. Yikes.

This week, I get a call out of the blue from the out-of-town dwelling owner asking me if I had any water ceiling leaks during the summer. She goes on explaining that she didn't have insurance before but just got insurance for the now empty apartment, and that if I get any leaks these days to please call her, not my insurance. I responded what my insurance told me: Call the insurance company lawyer if the problem continues unresolved. Ensued a heated discussion where my caller assured me I really didn't get the picture at all.

I think you and I get the picture very well actually.

She wants to have her new insurance foot the bills of leaky pipes repairs but of course, the insurance claim was made prior to her contract with them. This is a problem for her. So she needs me to help her make her insurance think the leak just happened.

What's in it for me?

The ceiling began leaking profusely again yesterday. Boring. I ran upstairs to see if any new renter had moved in. Sure enough, new renters were in. They had no idea they had just rented an apartment without hot water, much less with a giant leak to the main water pipe. They didn't look to happy about finding out and promised to inform the owner. I, in turn, called my insurance company legal department.

Some people like to make everything so complicated.