Hi everyone! Since updating my electrical wiring in my flat and installing a RCD unit, I've found out that the flat next door has one of its sockets connected to my main ring. We only found this out now because their faulty electric oven had tripped our RCD unit over night. Prior to this, the old fuse box electric system wouldn't have picked this up. The other flat's washing machine and electric oven was plugged into this socket (its one of those sockets which is underneath the units). The flat next door has always been rented out and from the information the tenants have given me, the socket has been there for at least 4 years (since they started renting the flat). That's four years of paying for the running of their washing machine and electric oven! The landlord has organised for an electrician to come round and put everything right. However, my query is this:
I gather that I'm entitled to compensation for the years of paying for the electricity to their washing machine and oven. So I've asked the landlord (very nicely) to give me a "token gesture". He's replied "I have never lived in this flat so have never used the oven or washing machine." I understand that he doesn't pay for the electricity to this flat but is it not his responsibility seeing that its HIS socket which was connected to MY main ring? I'm not sure how to reply to his response - any advice? I don't know about going after the tenants for compensation because I see it as the landlords fault in the first place.
Firstly the Tenants have no liability to compensate you. Secondly you would only receive some financial compensation if the Landlord knowingly fitted a connection via a socket to your electrical supply and from what you are saying he was completely unaware of the problem but as soon as it was revealed he has sought to put matters right. Whether he decides to compensate you would only be an act of goodwill on his behalf as any legal action against him would have the slimmest of chances of any success and would cost you more in legal work than the money you have spent/lost on running an oven and washing machine in an adjoining flat. Mel.
Aaah! You're kidding me! I'm so peed off that this has happened and I know its minimal in terms of what I've actually lost in paying for the washing machine and the oven (I calculate very roughly £2.40 per month per appliance for 4 years...about £230...but that's still money I shouldn't have forked out!) but how can something like this happen without recourse? Isn't there ANYTHING I can say to the landlord???
The tenants next door are "very embarrassed" and no, I haven't asked for anything off them. However, I will follow the motto of "if you don't ask, you wont get", swallow my pride and speak to them tonight. My guess is they will argue along the lines of they didn't know that the socket was connected to my main supply and shouldn't have to pay. But I'm only asking for a token gesture, even if I get £50 that would be a nice meal out! If I have to write it off, then I guess that's that but ergh, I'll be damned if I don't put up a fight first!
I wonder if its worth approaching the Freeholders of the block. Shouldn't they be responsible for ensuring that electrics in the flats are working properly?
I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years.
Hi MattW - I would, only problem is all the flat owners recently bought the freehold. Go after the old freeholders? For £200 odd? I decided not to ask the tenants - they're really nice people and through the years, we've got on very well as neightbours....no point jeopardising all that now. Ah, I guess my fight is over.....
Has it been rented to the same set of tenants for the last 4 years? And these people are your neighbours?
Yes, if they want to remain on friendly terms with you, then they should be offering you something. Otherwise, it says more about them than it does about you, as you are prepared to put it down to experience.
They are probably still talking it over between themselves about how much to offer you, so don't give up hope yet. If they are decent people, they will pay up of their own accord.
If they don't, just give them a wide berth in future...!
They wouldn't have a liability, Melboy. But I think they have a moral obligation to pay for their own electricity by at least offering the op something, even if it is only a token gesture.
I like where you're going with the washing, Jalopeno! I think I should even demand a roast dinner once a week!
Well, to keep you guys updated, they have unplugged the oven to stop it tripping my RCD unit. The electrician came round yesterday but I was out when he was "working" in the other flat. However, when I came back, NONE of my electrical sockets work. "Weird" I thought. Went out, the RCD unit had tripped again. In fact, it was my main ring. Went to turn it back on, still tripping. I turn off EVERYTHING in the flat, unplugged all my appliances even and it was still tripping. Absolutely livid, I knocked on the neighbours door. Apparently the electrician had come in and started ripping up floorboards. They were also not in the flat when he was "working". I speak to the electrician on the phone and he flat out denies that he has made the situation worse. I told him how it was. How could I have power the night before, he comes along, "works" on the oven and I come back with no power? He said all he did was to come round (on a Saturday) and "unplugged" the oven because he was fixing the wires on Monday. Does he take me for a fool?! He comes out for a job just to unplug the oven?! He then suggests that if the problem is still happening, it must be something in MY flat!! The RCD unit had been installed because I had a new kitchen put in. The electrician suggested that perhaps the workmen had put a nail in the wrong place! *scoffs* I am fuming that I have to now take a day off work to speak to this cowboy on Monday! What I'm now afraid of is, he comes along, fixes everything in the other flat but in doing so, does something worse which means I have no electricity. I am LIVID!
Well looking at the problem logically what he has done is to remove the source of the problem that was tripping your RCD by removing the oven and the washing machine from the circuit by unplugging/disconnecting both units. In theory that should be that for you in as much no electricity is being used by another consumer and the faulty oven should not now trip your RCD. What he is in the process of doing by ripping up floorboards is to possibly provide your neighbour with another output socket linked to their ring main. I would not completely rule out a possible problem with your own electrical circuits and these will have to be checked out by an electrician using portable test equipment for servicibility if only to satisfy your own mind that your flats' electrics are all in order. Mel.
Hi Melboy! It's still ongoing! We asked the electrician who originally installed the RCD unit to inspect the property (including the other flat). He'll be round again in the weekend - so we'll see then. As a temporary measure, he's rewired the main ring into the section that is not protected by the RCD (i.e. the section for the lights) and so, at least for now, we have power. Although, we could be electrocuted....fantastic(!)
Soooooooo what was the outcome of your electrical problems trinity?
