Does buildings insurance cover a leak from the flat above

When water comes through your ceiling from upstairs, the next worry is cost. Who pays to replaster the ceiling, replace the swollen kitchen unit and dry out the floor? In most London flats, the answer starts with the buildings insurance. But how it works for a leaseholder is different from how it works for someone who owns a whole house.

Buildings versus contents

The Leasehold Advisory Service explains the split.

What was damaged	Which policy	Who usually claims
Ceiling plaster and decoration	Buildings	Freeholder or managing agent
Walls, floors and floorboards	Buildings	Freeholder or managing agent
Fitted kitchen and bathroom units	Buildings	Freeholder or managing agent
Furniture, rugs and clothes	Your contents	You
TVs, laptops and appliances you own	Your contents	You
Damage you cause to another flat	Possibly your liability cover	You or your insurer

Buildings insurance should cover repairs and redecoration to the fabric of the building. It will not cover damage to your possessions. For those you claim on your own contents insurance, or the neighbour responsible may be able to claim on their policy if it covers third party damage.

Who holds the policy

In a leasehold flat, your landlord, the freeholder, is responsible for arranging the buildings insurance for the whole building. You pay towards it through the service charge. That means you cannot usually make the buildings claim yourself. You ask the freeholder or managing agent to make it.

Tell them as soon as the leak is found. Delay can make a claim harder, and insurers expect reasonable steps to stop the leak and limit the damage.

You also have the right to see information about the buildings insurance. If you want to know what is covered, what the excess is, or whether leaks are excluded, ask for it. The Leasehold Advisory Service explains how to use those rights.

Why Fulham and Hammersmith claims get complicated

Hammersmith and Fulham has one of the highest shares of converted houses in London. In the 2021 Census, 24.5% of households there lived in part of a converted or shared house, with 48.1% in purpose built flats.

The typical SW6 conversion is a Victorian terrace with two front doors, one for the ground floor flat and one leading up to the flat above. Sometimes the two leaseholders also own the freehold together, or one of them does. When the upper flat’s loft bathroom leaks through two ceilings, the same two people may be the person who caused the leak, the person who was damaged and the joint freeholder holding the buildings policy. It helps to know your lease and the policy before anything goes wrong.

The excess

Almost every buildings policy has an excess. The Leasehold Advisory Service says that, depending on the lease, the excess might be recoverable from the person responsible for the leak, or shared by all leaseholders through the service charge.

It also warns that if a building has had expensive water leak claims in the past, the policy might no longer cover leaks, or might carry a very high excess. In that case the freeholder may expect the cost of repairs to be met by whoever was responsible, or settled between the neighbours.

What buildings insurance might not cover

Policies vary. Common limits include:

• The repair of the leaking pipe or appliance itself. Many policies cover the water damage but not fixing the cause.
• Gradual damage. A slow leak that went on for months may be excluded.
• Negligence. The Leasehold Advisory Service notes an insurer might not pay if damage was caused by something like leaving a bath running or taking too long to fix a problem.
• Unoccupied flats. Some policies limit escape of water cover if a flat is empty for a long time.

Some policies include trace and access cover, which pays for the work to find a hidden leak, such as lifting floorboards. In a conversion, where the source may be under a neighbour’s floor, that cover can matter a lot.

What to do now

1. Stop the water and make the electrics safe.
2. Find and fix the source. A plumber can trace a leak through the ceiling and give you a written cause.
3. Photograph everything before you clear up.
4. Tell the freeholder or managing agent in writing, and ask them to make the buildings claim.
5. Tell your own contents insurer if your belongings are damaged.
6. Keep receipts for any emergency work.

For a fuller checklist on evidence and claims, see our guide to escape of water claims.

If you rent

Tenants do not usually deal with the buildings insurance at all. Your landlord is responsible for keeping the water and sanitation installations in repair under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and for dealing with the structure. Report the leak in writing. Your own contents insurance, if you have it, covers your belongings.

Preventing the next claim

Blocks with a history of leak claims pay for it in premiums and excesses. Simple steps in every flat help: resealing baths and showers when the silicone fails, replacing tired washing machine hoses, knowing where the stop tap is and turning it off when away. The Leasehold Advisory Service also recommends contents insurance that covers escape of water, so you are not left out of pocket when it is someone else’s leak.

A note on shared freeholds

Where the leaseholders in a converted house own the freehold together, they are also the people who arrange the buildings insurance. That makes it more important, not less, to agree in writing how leaks will be handled: who makes the claim, how the excess is shared and who is responsible for which pipes. Settling that when everyone is getting on is far easier than doing it with water coming through a ceiling.