General mobilization
Act with a cool head - quickly and calmly. We tell you point by point what to do.
- First, if you are at work or visiting, estimate how long it will take to be home
.
If it takes a very long time, think that perhaps one of your relatives will be able to get to the apartment faster. In any case, call the affected neighbors back and tell them what time you or someone you know will appear at home. Does it turn out bad in any case? Arrange with them to call a plumber from the emergency dispatch service. After all, if the problem is serious and there is a lot of flooding, you urgently need to shut off the riser.
- If your apartment is insured while you are driving home, call the insurance company
and describe the situation.
- When you arrive home, turn off the electricity (on the panel) and turn off the valves on the hot and cold water risers in the apartment
. Then immediately call the management company (MC) and the emergency dispatch service, if the neighbors have not already done so.
Is your home connected to the free social network Together? Then you can quickly contact your management company and neighbors online, even if you don’t have their phone numbers. Text the victims that you are on your way and call a plumber at home.
- Collect water from your floor
. Call for help from everyone who is nearby - family, friends. The faster you eliminate puddles, the less liquid will have time to flow down.
- When you're finished, go down to the victims. Offer help
if needed.
Maybe you need to move something heavy or wipe off moisture from furniture. With a small leak, only the ceiling has time to get wet; with a large leak, the walls, furniture, and floor also get wet. But your participation will in any case bring benefits: it will endear you to your neighbors. By the way, the opposite happens: neighbors can offer their help to eliminate the flooding as quickly as possible. If you come across such kind people, rejoice, agree and thank them.
- While you are visiting flooded victims, evaluate the actual damage caused to the apartment and things . Ask to take photographs of the condition of the home.
This will be useful for confirmation if the neighbor decides to sue. This way you will protect yourself from falsifying facts and paying for non-existent damage.
- Meet the plumber and representatives from the management company and service organization. Together with them, inspect the location of the leak
.
- When the commission goes to the injured party, go down with them and supervise the preparation of the flooding report
.
This is important if your neighbor is cunning and confrontational. By being present when the act is drawn up, you will not allow anything that was not damaged to be included in the damage caused.
- If the established cause of the flood confirms your guilt, agree on the amount of compensation with your neighbor
.
Try to come to an agreement on a humane basis. Explain that this is only what it seems: now I’ll go to court and get the money back! But in fact, it’s a long and tedious task that requires time, money and effort. And from both the culprit and the victim.
Calculate how much repairs will cost and how much money will be needed to fix broken equipment. If you can reach a compromise, draw up an agreement on the amount of damage, and sign a receipt directly when transferring the money.
Keep in mind that the agreement is not a guarantee that the neighbor will not conduct an independent examination and ask for a different amount. He is entitled to full compensation for damages.
- If you can’t reach an amicable agreement, ask that information about any disagreements that have arisen be included in the document
.
In this case we are talking about a list of damages. The neighbor may insist on his version, but you, seeing that he wants to further update the repairs at your expense, have the right to disagree.
We will tell you below how to determine the amount of payment for the damage caused. In the meantime, let's return to the question of the guilty.
What to do during a flood
If you hear the sound of a spring drop at the wrong time of year and in a place where there are no icicles, for example, in your bathroom, you urgently need to find out what happened. Unfortunately, there was a leak from the top floor. It's a nuisance, but not a grief.
You need to pull yourself together and start acting immediately, because a lot now depends on your competent actions. And we will tell you what to do if your neighbors flood your apartment.
It’s good if you were lucky enough to be at home when your apartment was flooded: in this case, as a rule, large-scale damage can be avoided if measures are taken in time and the water is turned off
It is necessary to de-energize your own home only if the leak is really large-scale. A small stain on the ceiling does not pose a significant danger. But a flood can lead to a short circuit somewhere inside the wall or to electric shock to those present in the apartment.
The automatic fuse, popularly called a plug, must be looked for in the panel located in the entrance; You should know exactly which one is yours, so as not to cut off power to your neighbors by mistake.
To turn off the power to your apartment, you need to press the red button on the automatic plug. You can turn the circuit breaker switch to the off position. If the waterfall does not stop, its source should be turned off.
You can do it like this:
- if the neighbors are upstairs, warn them that you are flooding - have them close the tap;
- if they are away, they should call the management company - have them send an emergency service to shut off the water.
By the way, in the future, emergency service employees will draw up a report on the flooding of your living space.
This is a modern valve and it looks quite decent, but if you try to deal with old equipment yourself, there is a high probability of making the situation worse
What not to do:
- You cannot break down the doors to your neighbors’ apartment, otherwise you may fall under Art. 139 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which talks about criminal liability for violating the inviolability of someone else’s home;
- if you have unimpeded access to a shut-off valve that shuts off the water supply to the entire entrance, you can use it, but if you subsequently discover damage to equipment or property from your actions, you will have to answer.
In any case, you need to act collectedly, quickly, but without panic. Then you will be able to protect your own interests without infringing on others.
Image gallery
Photo from
Contacting neighbors and calling the management company
Staying calm in a negative situation
Salvage of the undamaged part of the property
Contacting the insurer and the management company representative
Whose fault?
It is not at all necessary that you caused the leak. The following may also be held responsible for what happened:
- Your neighbors
are upstairs or to the side.
This is when you yourself have become a victim of flooding and water has leaked through your apartment to the lower floors.
- A service organization hired by your management company, or the management company itself
(depending on the specific terms of the agreement concluded between them)
This is if an old rusty communal pipe burst and was not replaced in time.
It is necessary to distinguish between the pipeline system inside the apartment and the one that applies to the entire house. If something happened to the general system - it exploded in the sewer or central heating - you have nothing to do with it. Compensation can be demanded from all of these persons. To do this, you need to assess the amount of damage and the amount of compensation. The same must be done when you are at fault, but it was not possible to agree on compensation with your neighbor.
How is the fact of a flood recorded?
The consequences of flooding the apartment must be recorded in an act, the drawing up of which requires a representative of the management company. He must be called immediately.
While he is gone, there is no time to waste, you need to do the following:.
- Take photos and videos of the damage caused. Your photographs and video will be evidence in court if litigation becomes inevitable.
- Invite your neighbors. Two or three people will be enough to act as witnesses when drawing up the act.
If by this time a representative of the management company has not yet approached, you can begin to draw up the act without him.
Representatives of the management company do not always have the opportunity to immediately appear to inspect the apartment and draw up a report: you can assemble a commission of neighbors and draw up the necessary document yourself
The procedure for drawing up the act
So, we need to draw up a report on the consequences of flooding the apartment.
It must include the following data:
- document's name;
- full address of the affected apartment;
- date of act: day, month, year;
- the composition of the commission is listed in full; it includes: the victim (you), neighbors who are invited as witnesses, those responsible for the damage caused (if any) and a representative of the management company (if any); do not forget to indicate the position of the representative of the management company;
- essence of what happened: briefly list the facts, describe the apartment.
For example, the author of the act may indicate that he (full name) drew up this act in the process of inspecting apartment N, located at the address (full address) upon the fact of the flood from apartment N, located on the floor above.
The affected apartment is located on such and such a floor of an N-storey building, and contains N rooms. If the cause of the accident is identified, it must be indicated. Otherwise, you can write the probable cause.
Go to the descriptive part
At the beginning of this part of the act you should write: “The commission established on the day of the survey...”. Not all consequences of flooding may occur immediately. Sometimes it takes 2-3 days. If new consequences are discovered (the parquet has reared up, for example), these facts will need to be added to the act as an addition.
Initially, the parquet may not look damaged, but after a few days, when the coating begins to dry out, it may become completely unusable
It is also necessary to mention that the act was drawn up based on an external inspection. With instrumental monitoring, the scale of troubles may be more significant, because not every breakdown is visible to the eye.
It is necessary to carefully record all information about signs of flooding:
- in what rooms they are located;
- where exactly are they located - ceiling, walls, floors;
- intensity of existing traces;
- We list all the damaged property - furniture, appliances, parquet, interior elements.
If the owner of the apartment in which the leak occurred allows it, you can include a description of the location of the leak in the act. Everything you see in this apartment needs to be included in the report: wet floors, emergency plumbing with a crack, etc.
When conducting photo and video filming, this fact must be mentioned in the report. Subsequently, it is advisable to print out photographs and have them certified by all members of the commission. If the person who caused the damage refused to sign the act, it’s okay: you just need to record this fact in the document.
Despite the fact that there may be a lot of damage and describing them will take a lot of time, do it: your determination will not leave the culprit with the illusion that he will get away with it
A representative of the management company must also draw up a report of approximately the same content, with a mandatory indication of the cause of the accident. Make sure he points out everything you think is important. If there are controversial issues, do not hesitate to make comments. The finished document must be supplemented by a defective statement.
When managers find themselves at fault for an accident, they try to distort or “fail to replace” the essential facts that determine their guilt, because they want to avoid responsibility or reduce its volume.
Remember that your goals are different, yours is compensation for damage. The management company must provide you with one copy of its act.
By the way, if the affected apartment is not privatized, you should carefully study your social rental agreement, since the owner of such housing is the state.
Independent assessment
To determine the damages caused and calculate the amount of compensation, you need to invite an independent expert. You can find the nearest inspection companies on the Internet. Just make sure that the company you choose has a professional liability insurance policy. And also that it be a member of a self-regulatory organization of appraisers.
The expert's services will be paid for by the one who is most interested in them. And if you agree, you can split the costs in half.
The expert will record the condition of the flooded apartment: take photographs and take measurements. And he will give you a conclusion-report, which will indicate the amount of damage and its compensation.
What actions should be taken next?
After determining the culprit (the flood occurred due to the fault of the management company or neighbors), there are 2 options for resolving the issue: peacefully and through the courts.
Peaceful settlement
If the damage is small and those who flooded are ready to help financially (or in some other way), you can accept their help . It should be noted that you should not forget to record this fact on paper, indicating the personal data of all parties, securing it with signatures.
It is recommended that the agreement be signed in the presence of an independent person (for example, in front of an employee of the management company).
Pre-trial claim
To exercise your right to compensation for damage after flooding, you will need an assessment report and a pre-trial claim for flooding of an apartment drawn up according to a publicly available template (addressed to the director of the management company or neighbors).
Going to court
If the guilty party refuses to compensate for the damage and does not want to pay for the damage caused to the apartment, it is worth filing a claim for flooding in court.
It indicates the amount that must be recovered from the culprit to restore the home, as well as the amount of compensation for moral damage, if there is a reason or motivation for this on the part of the victim. The assessment report, which must be attached to the claim, will help justify the amount of compensation.
We need to remain human even in such a difficult, critical situation and try not to spoil relations with our neighbors. The fact that the premises were flooded was an accident or an unpleasant coincidence, so the culprit had no personal motive to cause harm. The court is a way to resolve a controversial issue, and not a reason to become enemies .
Articles from our experts will help you figure out what to do if your basement or entrance floods and the roof is leaking, or if you are the culprit of the “flood” of your neighbors below, as well as how to take out flood insurance for your apartment.
Judicially
Well, what if nothing convinced your neighbor and he still decided to sue you? We'll have to participate in this.
There is hardly any need to worry too much. The court will rely only on evidence: photos and videos taken by an independent expert. This means that it will no longer be possible to invent something beyond measure.
It must be taken into account that if the plaintiff orders the assessment, he may abuse his right and show the appraiser more damage than actually occurred. Therefore, be sure to be present during the inspection.
Change the taps on time, do not forget to turn off the water, and may the dry floor and happy neighbors below be with you!
Flood in an apartment - procedure and responsibility
Any emergency situation that leads to property damage causes a lot of trouble and makes you feel pretty nervous. Of course, flooding an apartment brings fewer negative consequences than a fire, but many problems arise, no matter who is responsible for the flooding - the neighbors above or you. A flood in an apartment - today we will tell you the procedure and responsibilities of the parties in such an emergency.
To prevent a flood from happening in the apartment again, you need to replace the old communications - water supply and sewerage! A modern polyethylene pipe for water supply and drainage will last more than 50 years, and a high-quality mixer will last more than 10 years without any leaks.
If you follow a certain procedure when such an emergency occurs, you can deal with it much faster and more efficiently.
Flood in an apartment - procedure and responsibility
When you discover an incipient flood in an apartment, first of all, you should determine what caused it and try to prevent its further development on your own. But the first thing you need to do is contact the emergency dispatch service and call professionals for help, and only then look for the source - a flood in your neighbors’ apartment or at home.
In most cases, flooding in apartment buildings occurs due to burst water pipes or heating systems, faulty plumbing and household appliances. Often, apartment owners themselves become the culprits of emergency situations by forgetting to turn off the water taps before leaving the house.
Before emergency service personnel arrive, it is important to turn off the power to all electrical appliances in the apartment in order to somehow reduce the negative consequences of the flood.
A good help in identifying the culprits of the flooding and the reasons why it happened later in the apartment will be video and photographic materials, for which you should film what is happening in the apartment with a camera or video camera. The time of appearance of the emergency team should be recorded on paper.
When the work to eliminate the malfunction that led to the flooding is completed, the time comes to draw up a report on the accident that occurred, and then an inventory is drawn up listing the items and household appliances that have become unusable and partially damaged.
To complete such paper, the presence of representatives of the management company and witnesses, who may be neighbors, will be required. If those responsible for the flood are at home, their presence when writing the act will be welcome.
Compiling an inventory of the damaged property will take a long time; you will have to test the operation of household appliances to identify any malfunctions. You should carefully inspect all elements of furniture and belongings and describe in detail the damage that occurred in order to file a claim for compensation in the future.
After completing the necessary papers, the tenant whose apartment was damaged will need to discuss the issue with those responsible for the flooding about compensation for the damage caused. As a rule, residents, through whose fault another apartment was damaged, prefer to resolve the issue of paying for damage directly with the injured party.
Few people want to be drawn into lengthy litigation if there is a flood in their apartment - if the perpetrators of the flood refuse to dialogue, the injured party will have to demand compensation for the damage caused by filing a lawsuit in court.
The court will need documents about your ownership of residential property, a certificate from the management company about the fact of flooding of the apartment, as well as papers regarding the amount of damage caused.
To obtain such an opinion, it is better to contact an independent expert who has extensive experience in this area. The work of such a professional is valued at a substantial amount, but on the other hand, with such expert results there is a very high probability of receiving the maximum possible compensation in court. If the claim is successful, the losing party will pay the legal costs.
In life, there is always the possibility of ending up not only as a victim of a flood, but also as its culprit. To help resolve financial issues with the injured party and the perpetrator of the flood, taking out insurance covering civil liability in relation to third parties can help. As a rule, this insurance is included in insurance packages, but it is also possible to issue such a policy as an independent product.
According to specialists in the residential real estate market, the highest percentage of flooding occurs in the autumn, when a flood in an apartment can occur during the start-up of central heating in houses.
The summer months are also characterized by frequent emergencies leading to flooding of apartments. At this time of year, many residents go on vacation, leaving their apartments unattended. Because of this, the elimination of accidents can be complicated by the impossibility of prompt penetration into their homes.
And throughout the year, accidents leading to floods are not a rare occurrence.
That’s why knowing what to do in the event of a flooded living space will always help you deal with this problem quickly enough, whenever it happens.
A flood in an apartment is a very unpleasant thing, but it can happen to anyone.
You need to calmly go through such life problems. Did you like the article? Share with friends on social networks:
First actions in case of flooding
Unfortunately, a small stain on the ceiling is the best-case scenario. Often, owners are faced with a more serious situation: water flows in a continuous stream, resembling a stream or waterfall. In this case, the first necessary action is to turn off the power to the entire apartment. This will save you from a potential short circuit and prevent electric shock to residents.
The following steps are also taken without hesitation for a second. First of all, you need to turn off the water. Based on the situation, the problem can be solved in several ways.
- Quickly notify upper neighbors that they have caused flooding in the lower apartment. This option is preferable, since those responsible for the accident will shut off the water immediately, thereby minimizing the damage caused.
- If there are no neighbors at home, then the owners need to call the Management Company, the dispatch service. In this case, emergency services will immediately arrive at the address. Its representatives will shut off the water and then draw up a flood report.
- If there is access to a shut-off tap, then the owners of the affected apartment can turn off the water to the entrance themselves. However, these actions are not the best solution: if communications are damaged, all responsibility will be shifted to them.
- Contact a company specializing in flood elimination. They will help remove water from walls, ceilings, under parquet and laminate flooring. This must be done as soon as possible to avoid the appearance of fungus, which is extremely difficult to combat. The expenses incurred by you will be paid by the culprit. The SushkaPro company will help you dry and return your apartment or house to its original condition.
Other unlawful actions (for example, breaking down neighbors' doors) may lead to criminal liability under Article 139 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of the inviolability of the home).
