Property damaged. Advice please

[MdeB]

On the other hand if the said tenant bought his own property and police broke the door in the same fashion then the property owner, said tenant for example, would have to cough up.

But the tenant has bought the property for the duration of the tenancy.

[Lawcruncher]

Does that mean if it is a leasehold, then the freeholder is responsible?

If by "leasehold" you mean "long leasehold" Section 11 LTA 1985 does not apply to long leases. In a long lease who repairs depends on the lease.

[DPT57]

If by "leasehold" you mean "long leasehold" Section 11 LTA 1985 does not apply to long leases. In a long lease who repairs depends on the lease.

Its an interesting point though. In all the TV programmes I've watched about Police forcing entry, I've never seen them break in the front door to a block of flats, just the individual flat door, as they usually try to persuade another flat occupier to let them in. If this failed and they did break in the front door, I assume the management company/freeholder would have to claim from the block insurance, although it would be interesting to see whether they would try to recover the cost from the leaseholder, (tenants landlord).

[Hudson01]

Its an interesting point though. In all the TV programmes I've watched about Police forcing entry, I've never seen them break in the front door to a block of flats, just the individual flat door, as they usually try to persuade another flat occupier to let them in.

Totally correct, most of the time it works, if not the majority of the flats where the doors go in are social housing of some kind so the local neighbourhood teams have either a keycode for the main door or a fob...... it is rare indeed that one of those doors go in.

[minorbark]

I'm providing an update only in case it's of any use to someone looking through this thread at a later date as there's been some debate along the way on who should be deemed liable for the cost of repair and how successful an insurance claim would be.

My insurance company HAVE agreed to pay out on my 'accidental damage' claim. They have received all of the information I have on the cause of the damage, including the police's reference number, so there's been no attempt on my part to present the 'accident' as anything other than the police wishing to gain entry by forceful means while the tenant was present in the property.

Wording varies from one policy to the next so anyone else's outcome may vary but it clearly isn't beyond possibility that an insurer will agree to pay out despite the police's actions being no 'accident' in the dictionary definition sense of the word.

'Accidental damage' is defined, for the purpose of my policy at least, as "Unexpected physical damage caused suddenly by an identifiable external means". The police are clearly the 'external means' in this case but it's never made clear in the policy wording who needs to deem the act 'unexpected' for it to be covered. The situation was obviously completely unexpected by me, arguably unexpected by the tenant (who I assume hoped the situation would end with whoever was at the door walking away, regardless of how loud they were banging at the time), but clearly not unexpected by the police who were using deliberate force to cause the damage, yet my insurance company have agreed to settle the claim in full.

This implies that the insurance company believe that the cost incurred from this situation should be covered by the landlord. I expect I would have had my claim rejected and been told to discuss the costs with the tenant if the insurer genuinely thought that was a legal viable option that could lead to them not having to pay out themselves.

[jpkeates]

minorbark Thanks for taking the time to update us and give us some useful information.

[Lawcruncher]

My insurance company HAVE agreed to pay out on my 'accidental damage' claim.

If you don't ask you don't get!