Am I liable for my neighbors damages?

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kmitzel1

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My family lives in an upstairs apartment. The other night around 1230am we discovered that our toilet was overflowing and running, there was about an inch of water on the bathroom floor and had began to come out of the bathroom on to the carpet. We immediately turned off the water and began to clean it up. Our first concern was that it had leaked into the apartment below us, but we had not had a knock on our door telling us as much. We thought we had caught it in time. So we turned the toilet water off, cleaned up the mess and went to bed. Turns out it did leak, and the next day our neighbor informed us that there was a huge mess and that tons of her stuff was ruined. The maintainance man also came up to repair our toilet and in the process overflowed our toilet again, claiming in the the 13 years of his doing maintainance he had never seen a toilet do this. Today 4 days after the incident we recieved a letter from our neighbor who lives below us claiming that she thinks we are responsible for the $600 or so in damages it did to her stuff. She claims that we were negligent in not coming to get her when it overflowed and that because of that we are responsible. Is my family responsible for a faulty toilet?
 
Whether you are responsible for the toilet overflowing depends on why it became clogged in the first place. If someone in your family put something down it that caused the clog then you are the cause of the overflowing issue.

Hopefully the tenant below you has renters insurance (which is typically encouraged and sometimes required) to cover his/her damages.

Gail
 
thanks gail, what should i say to my neighbor?

They do not have renters insurance, and no the overflow did was not caused from us sticking anything down the toilet, like I said earlier, even the maiantainance guy caused it to overflow and that was after he had "repaired" it. Any advice on what I should say to our neighbor? She seems to be demanding we pay, and claiming that because we didnt notify her, that obligates us to pay her.
 
She claims her mattress, clothes, and a sheets for bed are ruined, and she claims the smell is unbearable and that she will most likely have to relocate within the complex.
 
When you notified your homeowners/rental insurance of the situation, what did they say?
 
Neither of us have renters insurance. So we did not contact them. We did talk to the complex though and they assured us and the neighbor that there was nothing we did to cause the overflow.
 
If it is not your fault the toilet leaked then this is what Insurance is for-- if she did not have any, then that is a hard lesson learned --- she will have to sue you-- this is a decision that a judge will have to rule on, as far as this being your liabilty or not -since neithor one of you have insurance. So tell her to sue you then, she should have had insurance & U 2,--
 
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